The Most Controversial Mechanic in GAMING HISTORY - Elden Ring

Elden Ring has the same feature other Souls games have: PvP Invasions. This feature, while loved by many... is DESPISED by a HUGE portion of the playerbase and souls-like community. Ranni the witch and a special guest tell you all about it!

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#eldenring #eldenringpvp #ai

[ferdinandavila-soto]

Miyazaki: “I want invaders to feel like very strong enemies roaming the world.”

Elden Ring: “Invaded by BallsDeep69420.”

[Corundrom]

The biggest issue is the way elden rings invasion requirements are rn, it pits invaders against only 2 types of people, the people who just want to chill with their friends and explore the game, and the people who want to abuse the system to destroy invaders, neither of which are healthy for the games 'ecosystem'

[Cinaran]

I clicked on this expecting to hear someone cosplaying as Ranni.
I didn't expect to hear Ranni hyped up on Adderal.
10/10

At any rate. My experience with invasions is mostly through my friends because for whatever reason it just doesn't happen to me. I don't play modded souls-likes often either, and when I do it's convergence with Seamless Co-oP.

There was one time I got invaded without knowing that it could happen in DS III and I got pushed into the Giants Arrow in the Undead Settlement. Mans name was Koman Dongh.

[Sassy_Appl]

Omfg, time stamp 0:46. The guy trying to get to Murkwater is getting invaded by the NPC invader and thinks that its a real person XD

[dustrockblues]

Primary reasons invasions suck imho:
1. Nobody understands Miyazaki' intentions because the games do a terrible job explaining them.
2. The multiplayer community is unbelievably toxic and unwholesome.

[productivestruggle]

I would say being invaded is a problem when players are being douchebags or just straight up cheating.

[rampantsarcasm]

my favorite thing is when people are invaded right next to a bonfire/site of grace, they lose literally *nothing* from dying next to it, but they will still act like fighting you is the single handed worst thing you could have done to them

[Kahlimer]

My experience with invasions is: playing offline 100%.

[peripheralvission]

I think what players need more than anything is incentive to PVP. when you struggle and overcome a boss, you are rewarded with runes or souls or blood echos among other potential drops that help you on your journey. If you get invaded and you overcome your opponent you're rewarded with a meager handful of currency and sometimes a humanity equivalent depending on the game. Nioh lets you collect gear from other players (I know it's not technically an invasion) which I think is awesome. Any incentive at all to pvp beyond just doing it for fun would help the community flourish greatly.

[Ontarianmm]

Okay, I will just have to explain what you all do not get. This is an *OPEN WORLD* arpg. This is *NOT* like other darksouls games. It can take you +20 minutes just to fucking ride somewhere new on the map. Which means getting invaded numerous times on your way to a new area, much less a new boss fight. Thus getting invaded repeatedly on your way to any new location is frustrating and boring. This takes the fun, excitement, and novelty out of invasion which is the point of the invasions. I mean, lets not pretend that most invader do not use the same 5 or so setups.

The answer of "just play offline" or "just use a mod" is dumb and asinine since that will take away from the pool of people you can invade. So you will get more gank squads making your invasions miserable. Thus reducing the number of PvP invaders too. PvP players need Co-op player to have someone to PvP with. If you are going to say that is just how the game works, we should bring back infinite backstabs and max level twinking then too, since that was also part of the game. Fromsoft has been tweaking and changing PvP since Demon souls since it clearly didn't match their vision of what they wanted it to be.

To everyone saying this isn't a co-op game, that is correct. It is also not a PvP game, it is a rpg. Fromsoft could turn off the servers tomorrow and it wouldn't hurt them too much. They made their bank already. They keep them up because they care for the community, and we as a community should actually work to make the game better in the future and bring more people to the multiplayer community; not shrink it.

At the end of the day, games are meant to be fun first. Sure some of that fun can come from overcoming challenges. Sure some of that fun comes from trolling people. However, when those challenges become monotonous, and the trolling becomes dry; it isn't fun. So lets not pretend like this system is perfect, or even that good honestly. Let's actually talk about how we can improve this for both sides in the DLC or future games, so we can keep this community growing getting stronger.

Now, let both sides of this discussion hang our egos at the door. Keep our victim complexes and superiority complexes at the door, and make the online community of this game a fun, interesting, and novel experience for everyone so people will be playing these games for years to come.

[tommynson]

I don't suffer invasions not because i don't invite them, but because my computer goes slow enough that Elden ring outright prohibits me from online play even with the lowest graphics

Low-end computer gaming B)

[HeWhoSlapsHimself]

PvP is great when you get a "good" invasion, but there are so many things that can go wrong with it that I can see how it left a HORRNDOUS first impression on the community. I tried to do a full coop run with my friend, and most of the invaders at low levels feel like a bunch of twinks who pull out some stupid overpowered weapon the second they start losing and then bow. A few months ago there were multiple people doing bloodhound step double naginata at like level 15. I'm so baffled they dont have some minimum level restrictions to prevent this

[QBcubed]

As I have stated to friends; it's not the PVP itself that bothers me, it's the frequency. The moment you entered an area with a different name in Elden Ring, the system would allow you to be invaded again. We'd have literally just finished a fight with an invader, took three steps into a new area of the region we were in, and immediately get invaded again. It made progression slow to a crawl and was annoying as all Hell. Resting at a Grace also reset the region, so even if we won, if we restocked our items we were immediately punished for it.

What would've fixed it entirely, at least for me, is disabling invasions for a generous period of time unless you used a specific item after defeating an invader. It would allow us to recoup, explore, and progress but not completely devalue the system as it was intended.

[KawabungaDude]

idk, i think there's a reason the most popular mod for this game is seamless co-op. think its at like 3m downloads.

many people just don't care for it. imbalanced weapons, still using p2p of all things in 2024 so it's a latency nightmare(proc buildup on dodged attacks for example), you've got your own video on the ridiculous state of parrying, twinks, etc. if people wanted to pvp, they'd go to the coliseum or lay down a dueling sign. there's even the taunter's tongue. but it's still imposed on co-op and it sucks. i feel like the closest miyazaki got to his "vision" was the giant jar warriors. npc tarnished based on real players.

elden ring made big strides in moving away from the more obnoxious things in past games. stakes of marika, groups refilling flasks, and scarabs help casuals without making the game worse and i believe invasions would be the same if they removed the forced nature of it. the tools are there for everyone who wants to partake. and if no one partakes, then perhaps that shows maybe it wasn't a very good mechanic after all. because it's not as if pvp is an unpopular idea; the most popular games on earth are all/have pvp.

[a_angry_bunny]

There are three very easy ways for Fromsoft to make new players more likely to engage in pvp. That is to stop making co-op take a resource, stop making players lose "rare" resources when they die in pvp, and stop limiting where you can summon random people.

As the game currently works, you have to use a resource to summon other players to begin with. This resource isn't very hard to get as you can literally craft it within the first few minutes of starting up a new save. This begs the question of why it is a requirement to begin with and not just make it so you can just turn on the ability to see summon signs to begin with. If you happen to die, it's not like having to make another one if you somehow ran out is a major inconvenience. Do you know what is a major loss though when you die? Losing an active Rune arc. Technically, Rune arcs aren't hard to get either. But since they cannot be crafted, they actually do feel like a limited resource that will always be on the back of the average Joe's mind when they see the invasion message pop up. All of that, though, would still be fine if co-oping in Elden Ring wasn't such a hassle. Why can't we co-op with randoms anywhere? Why does it have to be at predetermined statues scattered across the landscape? It's not to prevent people from only summoning in front of boss doors as we can still choose to do that by manually putting our summon signs at the door. Furthermore, why are we kicked from the game when a boss dies, and why are we limited by zone? Heck, while I'm on a roll, why not make it so the invader can attack you in the boss arena?

TL;DR: The co-op in Elden Ring and Souls games is overcomplicated for the sake of a silly "vision" and just needs to be overhauled for the long-term health of this type of game.

[warriorcatkspfan]

The only time I've complained about an invader was when I was like level 30 and newer to the game. Its kinda funny being invaded because half the time they're chill. One time I was summoned as a hunter and the host got killed in front of me, so me and the invader just bowed to eachother before we disappeared.

[HypnotiKSykotiK]

I think the issue most players have difficulty articulating is that they want to play with friends without being invaded. The concept of invasions is cool but most people just want to play with their friends. It's a game, not a competition. You can always say "git gud" or "skill issue" but at the end of the day most co-op players dont give a flying fuck about those things.

And that's why seamless co op exists.

[HeWhoDrinksCola.]

My only real issue with invaders is that, at least for me, when I'm playing with my friends, it's because we're just trying to experience a game that we all enjoy together. And especially when we're running through an area, just trying to reach the next site of grace, it's frustrating when bad red man appears and we're forced into 1 of 3 scenarios.

Either 1, we're forced to blitz our way straight to the boss and stop exploring so that we can avoid the invader, which is even more frustrating if we have to skip a site of grace to do that.

2, we're forced to fight them with builds that are centered around PvE or, in some of my friend's cases, builds that are centered around "I dunno I needed that stat to use this weapon that and I'm just throwing stats at whatever works for me." which almost never goes well for us. Like, I don't think any of us have ever successfully beaten an invader who was actually trying to kill us without resorting to cheap, unfair strategies, and doing that just feels... Wrong, I guess.

Or 3, just accept that we're going back to the last site of grace, so we just stand there and let them get it over with. Which has ultimately become our default response.

None of these are fun experiences for us. And while I know that invaders aren't going out of their way to ruin fun, for the experience that my friends and I want out of the game, which is an experience that get most of the time when we're not being invaded, it's not very fun for us at all. It's frustrating.

That's not to say that we've never had a positive experience with an invader. We were once invaded by a fun lad named Pothead. He led us through the path in Stormveil that leads to the ulcerated tree spirit boss that none of us would have known was there otherwise. Then we saw the area that was very obviously a boss arena so we just kind of stared into it because we really just wanted to fight Godrick. And then he knocked us all into the pit. And then he just stood up there and watched as we were violently destroyed by a boss that were were not prepared for. Which, honestly? Was actually fun, because he led us to a secret and didn't kill us himself.

We once got invaded while we were just exploring limgrave and the invader drew a little heart for us out of rocks, dropped some stuff for us, and then had a naked boxing match with all of us. So that was a good time.

It's just that those kinds of experiences are very few and far-between for us.

[blackknight]

DS2 is non consensual all the way. You can be hollowed to shit half health, and get invaded. I know because I have killed a few zombie looking mofos who died to a single swing of my zweihander.
Thn territory covenants are all forced invasions, and the rat covenant force summon you to another world, meaning they force an invasion on you. which was even funnier. So many layers to non-consensual invasions. Best game hands down.

[HZ-zvln]

8:51
"The invader can be the most sweaty pvp overlord you will ever see"
*shows footage of Jeenine*

Yep, seems about right