Ganking: From the perspective of someone who doesn't duel

It has just occured to me...

Let's say you only play dark souls for the PvE. You haven't even heard of duelling, or if you have you have no interest in it. Your only experience of PvP is going to be people invading your game and *** your **** up, ruining your enjoyment of progressing through the game.

Maybe this explains why SOME people gank; they see it as revenge against people who they see as threats to their enjoyment of dark souls PvE.

I know when I do play a DW and invade, if they have phantoms and they are there for a boss run or a level clear (it is usually extremely obvious) I expect the host and phantoms to do anything and everything to rid me of their world. To me, it's not "ganking" at that point.

There are multiple reasons why there are gankers. Leveling, a misguided form of vengeance, the intent of just causing others grief. Either way it is an act that only hurts the community. While I understand why some are driven to the point, it is still something I can never condone because of its vile nature. We should try to get them to understand the mistake they are making, but I will never be fine with them doing it for any reason.

Indeed, I was referring to people purposely "invader baiting" as revenge.

Yeah no one that I know of has an issue with people doing everything in their power to get rid of an unwanted invader.

Invaders are wanted in the case of gankers though, they put themselves in a position to invite them.

I don't have a problem with people who gank in the forest or in Dark Anor Londo.

I assume you have a problem with entire Covenants and their members then? If so I wouldn't voice that opinion much, it will start a flame war.

Tolvo, I thought I would never see the day that I would disagree with you. But, as I stated before, I don't consider it "ganking". Now, if they are standing around, waiting for an invader, yeah, total form of "ganking". But, in my belief, not everybody is pvp savvy. What if all three of them are purely pve based players, and as stated by OP, have no interest or want to even pvp?

Edit: or do we agree and just miscommunicated?

Before people start saying lock the thread.

I PVE with friends a lot (we use XBL chat to talk even though were playing on PS3). Once we were heading towards the Iron Giant and we get an invader. Were still progressing in the level but we obviously have numbers, so we hide ourselves in the level in good positions using the host as bait. Once the invader gets in our range we Tempest/WOG him to death. And we all still get a hate mail of course from the immature gamer.

At the same time I been in positions where me and my friends have ganked other players. We as usual were in chat and was just enjoying ourselves playing the game while killing other players in the Burg. We had no reason to do it, but we had no reason not to do it. If one of us died we just left a summon sign again. Yes to the invader it's some BS but for us it was just friend playing the game together enjoying ourselves.

In that situation they are focusing on getting the boss and that's that, so I have no problem with them doing anything in their power to kill the invader.

Dark Anor Londo is a zone you have to create which has only the purpose of PvP, so if you are in a Dark Anor Londo, there is no reason the person could be doing PvE, meaning the players there are only interested in PvP. The Forest rarely has people going for the boss, mostly just people waiting to gank. That was why I disagreed with Wisp's words.

We agree and there was just miss communication.

EDIT: I don't know how that Inter ended up there.

Thing is though, if you don't want to PvP, then you wouldn't and then if some guy invades your world you'd obviously 3v1 them

However I think there's a difference between guys who 3v1 because they are going to the boss and gankers are completely different, they seek to do it out of perhaps revenge, but I highly doubt it. I see it as them just wanting easy kills, hoping to get hate mail and a load of souls with it, they just find it fun to do so instead of farming mobs.

I don't think saying everyone who gets tired of invaders killing you on boss runs turns to ganking is correct. I don't even think that would ever be the case.

I think it's incorrect that people put reasoning into 'why' people gank, as though it's the same as developing neuroses for a psychological disorder. People just gank because they feel like it, because they want souls, because they find it fun. They don't have to have issues just because they gank.

Tolvo wrote:I assume you have a problem with entire Covenants and their members then? If so I wouldn't voice that opinion much, it will start a flame war.

No, I do a lot of forest hunting myself. As far as I'm concerned, that's the place to go if you want to fight more than one person at a time. But I digress...

Whew! Scared me there for a second, Tolvo.

Lets think about it:

1 month after the game was released, there were like a thousand of darkwraiths. Everyone had at least one toon that was a DW

Now, the DW covenant is one of the most rare I see out there. When you go human in a new area, the first thing you see is 10 white or gold signs, at least 1 red sign, and if you wait 5 minutes a darkmoon will invade you. Otherwise, if a red phantom invades you, he will probably use a princess guard miracle, darkmoon blade or great lightning spear. A shame really. DkS PVP is summarized by a host and 2 white phantoms trying to backstab a poor blue spirit.

Yes some of us do that, when I did play I invaded there often to kill gankers and try and rehabilitate them, so I was seeking gankers for "educational" purposes. But that's not for everyone. For some they don't know how to become a dark wraith or darkmoon, so their main option for invasion would be forest hunting. When hosting in the forest at low levels you'd be surprised how many new players you can run into...Though of course you'll also get extremely overpowered hunters/etc.

So basically yes, to some of us it is an appeal. But it's more so like becoming a soldier to try and defeat the enemy for the safety of others. I'd rather there were no gankers period. Though soldiers would be out of work of course if there was no enemy for them to kill.

It happens with Toneless text Delv haha.

Carphil wrote:Now, the DW covenant is one of the most rare I see out there.

I get pretty regular invasions from dw's and dm's. Aside from the areas that are bad for pvp, like blighttown, and even there I've been invaded pretty recently while leveling toons.

@Tolvo
When you say rehabilitate them, what do you mean? Do you message them not to gank anymore?

There are two parts.

One, kill them in the hopes that they will give up at least for a bit. Since if I invade sometimes I'll get locked invading them over and over, so usually after killing them ten times in a row I won't see them anymore. Either they stopped, or just reset their connection. But still this is something that while easy I'm not fond of.

Two, I do try to talk with them. Usually I just get hatemail in return, but I try to explain to those who are understanding how this hurts the community. How not all invaders are bad people, and I try to reason with them. It rarely works, but I've managed to get a few to agree at least. I don't know if they actually listened, but still it's worth a try.

I see, i've received my share of hate mail over me and my friends ganking before but never ASKING to stop. Only them attempting to flame me.

Where you said not all invaders are bad, I really agree with that to an extent. Yeah the person may not be a douche but in the end they are here to kill them so a LITTLE bit of hostility should always be shown to them in my opinion.

It depends on the type of invader which you can usually gauge. There are people like me who love a challenge, we like to fight on "Fair" footing and see who will come out on top. People like us you can usually be pretty fine around, though of course we still have a good deal of sour members.

Then there are killers, their intent is just to kill people for whatever reason. They aren't looking to duel, they aren't looking to enjoy a long fight. Whatever kills the enemy fastest, they will do. These people are fine to be hostile against, because of course they are completely hostile towards others.

It all just comes down to trying to get an impression of what you are up against.

Thats the thing, taking time to see what kind of person you're fighting. When I FIRST started playing the souls series I would get this rush of adrenaline when I got an invader. I sometimes would even panic, so im I think they might be that way too (not all). So when they see the invader their thoughts might not exactly be "well maybe he's a good guy" they might be like eff this guy and attack asap.... or run like hell.

In my opinion "ganking" is just another way to play the game the invaders don't loose anything and can leave if they feel there pristine pvp conditions aren't met. What is far worrse in my opinion is being mobed by three forest hunters while I'm trying to beat Sif because in that case I do lose souls.

Even those people have their tells though, as well you can do a few things to confuse them and see how they react. Usually they won't pursue if say parry them and then riposte them with your fist. They'll probably not even know what you just did, as well they'll understand you spared them so your motives will be lost on them. However if it is just a PvP'er looking to kill you they'll just charge back into the fight, so all you've lost is one opportunity to kill them. But there are many in the future anyway.

The parry idea may not be a good tell sign as it would likely just kill them unless they are a vit/end build I know it would probably kill my dex and int builds
edit:if you ripost with your fist I would just be super confuse. Most my builds are min maxed in every game so it might actually kill me.

That's why I said to do it with your fist, unless they have like, 20 health left, they'll live. It's rare to see a new player using a glass cannon.