Standard PvP in Dark Souls is atrocious

Most large weapons are, oddly enough, great for stopping bs-fishers. Just unlock and aim. Takes a bit of practice to get really good at it, though I hardly get back-stabbed on my greataxe build.

As an assassin who spends most of her time LOOKING for backstabs, I have to say that the game in general has an unsightly dependence on them.  It's embarrassing when a "toe-to-toe" fight between two people with builds geared toward PvP is more like two guys trying to butthump each other to prove which one is straight and which one isn't.

No Tony Romo.

But I fight unlocked and stunlock a lot, and I don't do that out of any hatred for backstabs, but rather because of how devastating of an alternative it can be, especially combo'd into BF or GC.

I'm sure at least sometimes people fire INT stuff at you or spam WoG/use buffs + R1 spam themselves.  What else is there to the game?  Kicks and R2's basically?  It's a game of spacing, timing, and judgment first and foremost and that applies to every build.

It sounds to me that you're actually just complaining about how easy it is to stomp on bad players :p.

TheMeInTeam wrote:
It sounds to me that you're actually just complaining about how easy it is to stomp on bad players :p.

 THAT'S JUST IT.  I shouldn't HAVE to stomp on bad players like that!  It's not fun for either of us!  The losers are trying to take advantage of a stupid tactic and I'm forced to end it in the least fulfilling way!  They lose and I don't even get the satisfaction of beating them.  Something is definitely wrong when someone can freaking complain about that!!!

I was just complaining about this the other day. 2 days in a row, everyone who invaded me always looked for a backstab. Every single person. And when you find people who are actually looking for a honorable duel, as soon as you start woopin on them they go for backstabs. And by then, you already have the fact in your head that this is an "honorable duel" so you already got the "screw it, i'll just bs" concept out of your head (best way i can explain it lol.) For a while i didn't have a problem. I know how to counter backstab and all the little tricks but for some reason as of lately all i do is get backstabbed. I'm glad i'm not the only one experiencing this.

You're not crazy luna, it's dumb. Backstab fishing is dumb. 

I wish there was an item I could wear that eliminated BS in a fight -- for both me and the other guy, even, I don't care. It really, really detracts from the game -- PVP for me is a test of patience to see if I can outlast the BS/gankers long enough to get one decent fight.

I'm glad everyone agrees. There's people on the forum who just say "stop crying about it." It is a problem but there's nothin we can do. It's gonna happen. It sucks, but it's the truth.

I really like the Butcher Knife for this. When they strafe to the side it dead angles them, then stunlocks them


Also completely agree, as I think many people who've PvP'd even a little would too.

Backstabs are so powerful and easy to pull off that almost every fight comes down to 'he who backstabs wins'.


I see so many players new to PvP tell stories of how they won and almost unanimously they go something like "I was down a bit, but I finally managed to land a backstab and win".
It's the go to tactic, and with a bit of lag there's sometimes very little you can do to stop them.


I'm really looking forward to DaS2 having this fixed, sure it will make it harder to take down gankers, but imo that is a sacrifice I'm willing to have FROM make in order to provide fights that are actually fights, and not a** **** fests.

 IMO all that needs to happen with backstabs is the window needs to be narrowed (it's currently a 90deg cone out of the back) and the damage needs to be reduced. Backstabs are meant to be a punishment for sloppy play, drinking estus, going for a huge jumping attack, they shouldn't be a one hit kill just because you don't have +1500hp.
They should do a little bit more than a two handed jumping attack (25% more for example), not 3x the damage of your strongest attack.

 
Also if you want a backstab (and riposte unfortunately) free fight just battle people on the rotating bridge in Anor Londo.

I know is one of those never ending topics... but Ill say something anyway =P

Coming from a fighting game background I find that I want to fight... but that is not the way the game goes. Its about standing in just the right spot for the one hit KO.
It would be sort of like if throws in street fighter caused 90% damage.

Now before the pile on, let me say I was a big fan of Bushido Blade (1 hit kill sword fighting game on PS1) and that was ALLL about being in the right spot at the right time for the strike (or mashing like crazy and hoping for the best).

I have seen the pro videos talking about all the complexities of rolling, pivoting, stepping, and running (sort of like Ballet... if it were a game of death!) and I see that PVP in Dark Souls is just that way. It is unique though.

I just get people who fight normally until you start beating them, then they start endlessly spamming trying to get an easy kill

I've encountered A LOT of new players and the first thing they do is circle you and fish for a BS. Unlocked 2-handed R2 claymore takes care of that mostly, or I just counter strafe and land my own backstab with a fist. Less damage but I'll just keep fisting them if they fish

LunarFog wrote:It's embarrassing when a "toe-to-toe" fight between two people with builds geared toward PvP is more like two guys trying to butthump each other to prove which one is straight and which one isn't.

 made my day +1 to you

...and welcome to normal Dark Souls PvP  
That's the reason i switched back to Demons Souls some weeks ago. The BS is a crit with high damage, but harder to trigger and a riposte hurts MUCH more. No fisher, no chainstabbing, no lagstabbing - that's the way it should be done. Hope they fix it in DkS2, or we see a Demons Souls 2, what i would prefer.

pvp standards.....

Buff if u want,Bow if they do or bow then buff.

Back stabing is okay. it is just a problem if fish 4 constantly, Im fine getting bs punish since its my fault he got the back stab but people just doing the constant fishing is annoying

People depend on backstabs way too much. They use it for both offence and defence.

The same can be said about spaming spells, or Curved Swords.
Once the player finds himself outmatched in melee, he will fall back and rely on spaming and bs fishing to win.

The worst part is that most players, if not all, you meet randomly do this. It's not even hard to counter, but it's extremely boring to fight, especially when you have to do so so very often.


 
 
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Zwei works great for me.

Yesterday I went back to DkS, and loaded my highest soul level toon (225), went to kill Manus in NG+ something.

Invaded at the township, ooo so exciting! A PVP battle!

Guy shows up, ninja flip, chaos great scythe, giants, what to expect?

He ninja flipped my attacks for 2 minutes, pvot backstabbed me, wake up WoG, backstabbed me again, another wake up WoG, and finish with a new move called backstab!


and introducing: backstab!

I've figured out the best thing you can do is join one of the covenants on this forum, ask who wants to duel and do it. Mostly everyone on here hates BS fishers (clearly) and don't do it themselves so you won't have to worry about it.

I mean lol, why is OP spamming R1? I'm surprised your not getting parried.

But in all honesty, this is sadly how a lot of fights go for me as well. People just bs fish and I tend to have to counter bs them.

I guess a lot of the DkS gamers dont know how to counter bs? If they did, then surely they would see  how ineffective constantly strafing for a bs is, not to mention boring.

Excellent....a voice of reason. +1 Lunar.

Sounds like a group of people with some (God I hate saying this anymore) RULES would be able to create an environment that's more fun, balances balance issues, and promotes an environment we would've gotten if there was some beta testing before release.

And unless they patched Demon's Souls, the backstabbing problem was worse in that game.  The only thing that made them tolerable was roll cancels.  It's the reason they shrunk the hitbox in Dark Souls.

*edit*

NVM, I owe you a +1 my  

The worst part is that most players, if not all, you meet randomly do this. It's not even hard to counter, but it's extremely boring to fight, especially when you have to do so so very often.

I see this mentioned a lot.  I believe the issue in this argument "boring to fight" comes not from how strong the tactics used are, but rather the consistency at which the opposing player can be beaten.

This implies that it is boring to regularly defeat inferior competition, which would be the case no matter what.  Take for example if rather than fishing against you, absolutely everybody just locked onto you and pressed R2 90% of the time.  It's not fishing!  But how many wins in a row against that would it take before it stopped being interesting?  Not many.

I don't fish for backstabs much, solely because I don't view it as a particularly effective tactic to use in excess against competent opponents, which are the only opponents who require effort to defeat anyway.

Being efficient in backstabs and backstab counters is the ONLY way to compete in a "lawless" environment.

If you're not "fishing" which includes waiting for a roll bs, you're doing it wrong.....from a "play to win" point of view.

Animaaal wrote:Being efficient in backstabs and backstab counters is the ONLY way to compete in a "lawless" environment.

If you're not "fishing" which includes waiting for a roll bs, you're doing it wrong.....from a "play to win" point of view.

 more like 'ghey to win'