So what do you think the number one thing wrecking Dark Souls is?

People actively looking for cheats & glitches.
Stumbling upon them is one thing, actively looking for them is just sad and sooner or later
they get out an miraculously NO-ONE knows how to play properly anymore (go figure?)

In regards to PvP well...
You're always gonna have whiners, whining over spells, weapons, armour everything they either
lack the intelligence to beat or lack the skill to beat.
I enjoy PvP but its too bad this generation is a bunch of sore losers, cheaters and ego-manic's
(I know everyone isn't)

Never really understood how some people can't understand that everyone wins & loses
Winning all the time would become stale.

Sorry went off topic... I think... :S

Poise.
Poise ruins the game a lot of the time.
I either run into players with too little poise, who get stunlocked by my hits, or with so much poise they ignore my attacks and just backstab me after shrugging off my hits.
No exception. The next game should get rid of it and go back to demon souls style.

I make no assumptions about whether or not From cares about these forums or the opinions of their customer base, but if I owned/managed a game publishing/development company, I would definitely browse these forums to see what people liked and didn't like. The problem is, we debate a lot of things here, some of them minor, and some major. The trick would be sifting through everything to sort out what is relevant.

If I owned From and was monitoring, I would definitely have taken seriously the complaints about lag and the lack of dedicated servers. It's a problem that has far-reaching impact on the quality of the MP and co-op component of the game.

Other things, like the twin-G issues (griefers and gankers)....who knows? Most people just accept griefers as a fact of Dark Souls life, and move on. Some patches have made gankers a bit easier to deal with. I suspect they probably want to tell us all to suck it up and find a way to deal with the harsh reality of Dark Souls.

For all we know, both Gaz and Callipygias may be equally correct to certain extents. FS may keep tabs on the heartbeat of the community, but they may also weigh this against their own playtime and expertise in creating a balanced game.

@Emergence- Maybe 'wrecking' is too strong a word to use, but it is clearly the buzz word on this forum of late when it comes to discussing what supposedly makes or breaks the game. When it comes to nerfs/buffs I am of the frame of mind that less is more, and I was on the whole happy with the game in it's pre-patched state. That's not to say that I think the patches were totally unwarranted, or that they have not in some way served a useful purpose, only that IMHO they contained a lot of modifications that were in my mind totally unneccessary. I totally agree with your final comment, people DO need to chill, and maybe then they will start to enjoy the game a bit more.

@Isirith... You'll always have people who view winning above anything else. The way I see it, it's their lose if they glitch or mod the game, as by cheating in this way they are effectively robbing themselves of an amazing gaming experience. As for your comments relating to PvP, I agree, just imagine how stale the game would become if you were able to win all the time? This is why I cannot understand why anyone would be sore about losing a PvP bout. You lost, so what? Move on, learn by it, enjoy the game. Why waste your time complaining, when it could be much better served honing your PvP skills?

Rynn wrote:Poise.
Poise ruins the game a lot of the time.
I either run into players with too little poise, who get stunlocked by my hits, or with so much poise they ignore my attacks and just backstab me after shrugging off my hits.
No exception. The next game should get rid of it and go back to demon souls style.

While I agree that poise is a flawed mechanic and needs to be adjusted, I don't think that going back to the stunlock days of Demon's Souls would solve the problem. Heavy amor would lose its most significant appeal. It just needs to be worked on more.

Poise, as a concept, is an excellent idea...on paper, that is. In practice, it's not completely there yet, and needs some tweaking to perfect it, because right now, it has a huge advantage in PVP.

But above all, there is nothing more debilitating to my motivation to PVP than the lag. Its just way too much for my tastes. I know that some people have learned to compensate for it, but to me, the amount of compensation that needs to be done is too much for a game in which precision is everything. Perhaps if the lag delay was reduced, more low poise players would be able to cope with higher poise players.

@Rynn... How does it ruin the game? Are you seriously suggesting that just because some people do not know how to effectively use poise, we should just get rid of it?

@BackLotBasher... Everynevers is probably more on the mark with his one word response, in that what we discuss here and on other forums will invariably lead to petitions being raised, which Fromsoft then feel compelled to act upon. I am of course only surmising when I say this, but it would certainly help to explain why this game is a heck of a lot more patched than DeS ever was.

@MasterofShadows... Hopefully, they'll have perfected the concept of Poise by the time DkS2 comes out, and as for lag I'm sure that Fromsoft will be attempting to address this too. DkS is a flawed Masterpiece, but it is still one of the greatest games ever made, and for that I am prepared to overlook the odd blemish here and there.

[quote="MasterofShadows"]

Rynn wrote:But above all, there is nothing more debilitating to my motivation to PVP than the lag. Its just way too much for my tastes. I know that some people have learned to compensate for it, but to me, the amount of compensation that needs to be done is too much for a game in which precision is everything. Perhaps if the lag delay was reduced, more low poise players would be able to cope with higher poise players.

I am in that boat. Maybe it's where I live, Xfinity/Comcast sux, or idk... but a vast majority of invaders to my realm "Bamph"-stab me.

Gazman0169 wrote:@Rynn... How does it ruin the game? Are you seriously suggesting that just because some people do not know how to effectively use poise, we should just get rid of it?

Quite. It needs removed or heavy refinement. Right now it's either not used at all, or abused to "tank" a hit purely for the purpose of getting a backstab. Poise was intended so the user could try to trade blows, and win out by having more HP, Damage, or a combination of the two. Instead it's used to casually stab me in the back.
No exceptions to that, EVER. I'd rather have it removed if it's not going to be refined.

Gazman0169 wrote:@Trym... Luv the Avatar!

thx ^^ its an illustration of the norns from norse mythology, quite fond of it myself

@Rynn... I'm sorry, I have to disagree, when you can just as easily learn how to evade a backstab. I agree that Poise needs some refining, but it has it's merits, and is IMHO a damnsight better than being stunlocked to heck and back all the time, which was what tended to happen in DeS.

While we're at it, let me compile a list of things that come to mind.

(please understand that I'm another passionate Dark Souls fan, and only desire to see it further polished so it can shine much more)

1. Incomplete covenant system. A more comprehensively developed covenant system would have made this feature so innovative that it could have been one of the main selling points of the game.
2. Incompletely developed poise system (Don't get rid of it, just fix it)
3. LAAAAAAAG!!!!!!
4. Poison is useless
5. No aim for crossbows (and no good reason either. Sniper Crossbow, anyone?)
6. NPCs always have better throwing knives than me (Chester, Undead Assassins, Painting Guardians, the Imperian Agents in Demon's Souls, etc). Throwing knives in this game are 100% garbage, yet half the vendors seem to like to sell it, even the ones later in the game. The only use is for pulling mobs, which is another problem in this game. Make better AI so that stealth players can't just pull their way to success (I'm a thief player, so I'm talking about myself too).

Okay, now I'm just whining. Still love the HECK out of this game.

@MasterofShadows... Oi, this isn't 'Jim'll Fix It' you know? (Hm, too soon? :roll: ) No wish lists here if you please, as this thread was intended to berate the moaners, not give you the opportunity to post your wish list to Santa!

I believe the poise system was poorly done as well. In fact the entire armor system in both games is sub par. I wouldn't say its wrecking the game, but it needs work.

(on a side note, if you got stunlocked for more than the second or third hit in des, you probably weren't very good. The toggle escape worked beautifully, and most weapon can't stunlock infinitely reguardless)

Back Lot Basher wrote:I make no assumptions about whether or not From cares about these forums or the opinions of their customer base, but if I owned/managed a game publishing/development company, I would definitely browse these forums to see what people liked and didn't like. The problem is, we debate a lot of things here, some of them minor, and some major. The trick would be sifting through everything to sort out what is relevant.

If I owned From and was monitoring, I would definitely have taken seriously the complaints about lag and the lack of dedicated servers. It's a problem that has far-reaching impact on the quality of the MP and co-op component of the game.

Other things, like the twin-G issues (griefers and gankers)....who knows? Most people just accept griefers as a fact of Dark Souls life, and move on. Some patches have made gankers a bit easier to deal with. I suspect they probably want to tell us all to suck it up and find a way to deal with the harsh reality of Dark Souls.

For all we know, both Gaz and Callipygias may be equally correct to certain extents. FS may keep tabs on the heartbeat of the community, but they may also weigh this against their own playtime and expertise in creating a balanced game.

I don't know how many times I have to say this but...

DEDICATED SERVERS WILL NOT SOLVE LAG!!!!

Lag is a combination of bandwidth/internet speed and physical distance between the players (in P2P) or the combination of the players distance to the server. The only thing dedicated servers would do is give more consistent summoning, since the server now holds that info, and region locking, which simply limits the max distance players can be from each other, but at the cost of less players available overall and limits the time the online element can be active since when the server is turned off, online is done. This gives an illusion of less lag because you're never against people on the other side of the planet, but would do nothing about the lag that occurs against people relatively close to you.

Quite. It needs removed or heavy refinement. Right now it's either not
used at all, or abused to "tank" a hit purely for the purpose of getting
a backstab. Poise was intended so the user could try to trade blows,
and win out by having more HP, Damage, or a combination of the two.
Instead it's used to casually stab me in the back.
No exceptions to that, EVER. I'd rather have it removed if it's not going to be refined.

I'm sorry Rynn, but just because you're getting backstabbed by every single person that tanks a hit is not a good enough reason to remove one of the better things in Dark Souls. You're basing this off a PVP experience in a game that is designed to be a PvE with PVP elements that the community decided to make a big deal off (Myself included).

Poise is not broken. If you predict a backstab you perform a counter backstab. One does not just attack a player with 77 poise. You hide and backstab them or kick them, they are naturally slower.

Not if they know how to build, but poise is irrelevant in pve, if the goal is simply to finish the game. Shield+spear and a bow. Never take damage. Tanking hits is a terrible idea in pve anyways, you'll get worn down before you finish the area.

Seignar wrote:
Poise is not broken. If you predict a backstab you perform a counter backstab.

This is another thing I take issue with. Backstabs are stupid, and when paired with the other flawed mechanic of poise, it becomes a problem that the only solution to is "Backstab them back"

Forum Pirate wrote:poise is irrelevant in pve, if the goal is simply to finish the game. Shield+spear and a bow.

Cuz everyone wants to finish the game using only a Shield/Spear/Bow setup? That example pretty much sums up why poise is important. Variety.

I don't want poise to be removed unless the heavier weapons get hyper armor
I'd rather not run around scared to get hit because it will always lead to more.

And I prefer to counter backstabs with parries - much more satisfying.

Sure, poise is important. Its a great idea to deal with stunlocking. It just needs further tweaking is all.

Gazman0169 wrote:
@Isirith... You'll always have people who view winning above anything else. The way I see it, it's their lose if they glitch or mod the game, as by cheating in this way they are effectively robbing themselves of an amazing gaming experience. As for your comments relating to PvP, I agree, just imagine how stale the game would become if you were able to win all the time? This is why I cannot understand why anyone would be sore about losing a PvP bout. You lost, so what? Move on, learn by it, enjoy the game. Why waste your time complaining, when it could be much better served honing your PvP skills?

Exactly!
You win, you lose.

And when you've been winning it's nice to have the streak broken and during the respawn time change up
your approach for the next line of fights!
Or if you've been losing its nice to strike someone down and taste sweet victory!

So I really don't understand why people get sooo butthurt about losing.
To cheaters, yes I understand. In a legit duel... Well.. Handle your **** Fabius! Jesus...

MasterofShadows wrote:4. Poison is useless

If you think poison is useless then you really haven't spent enough time finding where it's effective. It is highly useful in both PvE and PvP. In fact ask most bow players what's their favourite choice of arrows is. With poison you can put massive pressure on someone in PvP and I have won many fights due to poison killing my opponent.

And regarding the poise discussion, I have seen no one come up with a solution to their issue with it. All I see is that people say it's broken with no reason other that people backstab them. Poise has added great depth to the combat system considering how simple the concept is. Light fast armour, little to no poise. Heavy slow armour, medium to high poise. I don't get how anyone think that system is broken. If people want to take issue with something then pick fault with Havel's ring.

Oh and I'm against the idea of hyper armour for ultra great swords. The idea of two naked, no wolf ring zweihander users can just hit each other until one of them is defeated with no stagger is just stupid in my mind.

Poise should stay. It was frankly the only thing that actually makes heavy armor viable. Remember how heavy armor was used in PVP or PvE? Yeah, you don't. Why? Cause 99% of everyone considered heavy armor useless and rolling 10X better.

The online aspect of this game has bigger problems than poise. 1-shot magic, hornet ring backstabs, these things make poise seem like a joke.

@Steveswede It is stupid, but not quite as much as someone running around with only a dagger stunlocking the guy with the UGS.