Progression and honour in PvP

I'll start this post by saying that I have just signed up to this forum, although I have been lurking here for several months now. So hello everybody!

I get the general impression that most people who post here have a dislike for gankers and dishonorable pvpers. It's really not surprising, nobody enjoys being stunlocked or hornet ring 1HKO'd mid bow, myself included. But I just thought I'd share my perspective on this, as I more or less started as one of these dishonorable types but have since discovered that dueling is much more satisfying to methan being as cheap as possible in pvp.

I started playing dark souls several months after release, and never played demon souls. So when it came to my first pvp experiences, I inevitably got owned. Being a competitive person, I very quickly wanted to figure out how to take my vengeance. After playing a lot of my first playthrough using a claymore, it didn't take too long to figure out that greatswords are good at stunlocking, and I gained my first pvp victory this way. After beating the game for the first time, I decided to make my first pvp build using greatswords. It ended up being a str/fai build using DMB and the man- serpent greatsword.

I will add at this point that I had been minimizing my use of the wiki as much as possible, so I didn't know about every piece of gear in the game. I was also not aware of the unofficial honor type rules that a lot of people stick too, and had not web on any dark souls forums yet. So when I discovered how strong the giants armour and mothers mask on my first playthrough, I knew they would be strong for pvp and naturally built my greatsword user around these.

So by just wanting to build a strong character so I would no longer get owned constantly on pvp, I ended up with a super cookie-cutter buffed greatsword using mom giant flipper with rofap, without having any idea that this type of thing
would probably lose me a good chunk of respect.

This brings me to my next point, back then I didn't care about respect. I found it hilarious to stunlock bowers, and repay the suffering that I ha incurred when learning the ropes. I also enjoyed receiving outrageous hatemail afterwards. To me it seemed justified given the brutality of the rest of the game. I can't say I ever really got into ganging in the forest to farm invaders, but I would have had no problems doing it. Because even though I hit like a truck and had great armour, I still lost a lot because I was new to pvp and a long way behid the skill levels of a lot of other players.

Comparing this to now, I am bored of winning for the sake of winning just because I can leverage gear and abilities others often refuse to. And I am bored of invading questers who are not set up for pvp encounters and generally pushovers. I don't wear giants armour or the family masks these days. I don't gang up or attack bowers. And I don't heal in pvp unless the enemy does it first. Now i just want to win purely because i played better than my oppenent. To me the most fun to be had in dark souls now is dueling, and funnily enough killing these gankers and dishonorable players, but without abusing their cheap tactics.

I actually think a lot of these gankers, etc. that people have it in for are probably just new to the game and sick of being slaughtered by people who know all the ins and outs of pvp. They are gaining whatever advantage they can to try to even up the playing field, just as I was. Many are probably unaware of the unofficial honor code of dark souls. And in time a lot of them will probably get over it and move on. Personally I hope there are always gankers around, because i now find it so enjoyable to test my skills against them and hopefully rain on their parade. And I think deep down a lot of you guys enjoy them being there too, because killing three Dishonourable, mom giant flipping, buffed greatsword spamming dudes in the forest sure is satisfying!

Geeza

Your entie post is built on the premise that character building and gear selection are not skills. They are, and if they win you matches, you won with skill.

Furthermore, there is no one definition of cheap. I find nothing cheap, under any circumstances.

Do I heal? No, because I don't wish to develop a reliance. Do I chain stab? Not unless they heal or chain stab first. This isn't a reflection of a believe that such tactics are cheap, but an effort to improve myself by refusing to rely on them.

If you're denying yourself GEAR based on ideals, why are you not naked and using your bare hands aa a sl 2 bandit? After all, then everything is always fair and no one has any advantage beyond skill. I don't see the line you seem to have imagined that makes some gear acceptable and some not.

You are very right in saying that making builds is a skill, it takes a lot of knowledge of this game to make fully optimized builds around certain playstyles. It's something that I enjoy doing a lot.

And I should clarify that I may have chosen the word "cheap" poorly, it is subjective and at the end of the day if something is in the game it's there to be used.

The main point I was trying to make is the shift in attitude and what I find enjoyable that has occurred for me as I have improved at the game and played more. It is just a game and people can play however they want, I'm not suggesting that if you don't play this way you are doing it wrong. I'm just interested to see if others went through a similar experience. I used to need to min/max my gear's stats to give myself a decent shot at winning, but now that ive improved I often forego maxing out stats in favour of appearance. Winning feels better when you look good doing it!

http://tinyurl.com/9utbbsr

This is actually the closest I get to "min/maxer" gear, but compare those defences to full giants and see why. The defence boost cuts damage by enough that the mom would mean I die faster in many cases.

I do use the dwgr instead of colathary ring sometimes.

Awesome story, welcome to Light side. +1

"This brings me to my next point, back then I didn't care about respect. I
found it hilarious to stunlock bowers, and repay the suffering that I
ha incurred when learning the ropes."
This is the root of many problems right here. People take out their anger on the wrong person, whom then takes out their anger on a different person whom...
You get the point.
But its good to know you've joined the side of fun!

Thats incredibly arrogant. He just said he was having fun the other way as well. Its fun, its experienced by the individual, and the individual is only responsible for their own enjoyment, no one elses.

I'm absolutely positive many people find the "side of fun" incredibly boring or needlessly frustrating, which makes their side the side of fun as well, meaning that neither side is the side of fun.

Its a game, enjoying it however you please is perfectly fine, regardless of how that is.

My statement
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Forum's head.
Yes Forum, I was saying its only possible to have fun fighting my way. Thank you for telling me what my point was and ignoring any possible implication of a humourous comment provided by the " " smiley I use whenever I post something not to be taken competely seriously.

I'd say your experience is very common. All I can remember of my early
pvp experiences, is, that no matter what, without fail, I would get
one-shot back-stabbed - EVERY damn time!

I was just looking to have some good pvp, to engage in some enjoyable
sword battles, but no.

I could very easily have become a "Ganker", not out to be an a**hole,
just needing some assistance; But at the time I didn't know about
summoning, so I guess I skipped that phase. Praise The Sun! -.-

Forum Pirate wrote:Thats incredibly arrogant. He just said he was having fun the other way as well. Its fun, its experienced by the individual, and the individual is only responsible for their own enjoyment, no one elses.

I'm absolutely positive many people find the "side of fun" incredibly boring or needlessly frustrating, which makes their side the side of fun as well, meaning that neither side is the side of fun.

Its a game, enjoying it however you please is perfectly fine, regardless of how that is.

Forum you seem to forget that the definitions of what's okay and what's not okay change once you involve other people. Fun at the expense of others is not something that should be encouraging, yet thats exactly what youre doing. If the only thing that matters is one person's enjoyment then where exactly does that stop?

Okay how about this, I just decided following you around the forum and trashing you constantly is fun, I'm going to recruit other people to help me and since we are very computer savy the admins won't be able to stop us. Is that okay? After all its what I feel is fun and I won't let pesky ideas of respect slow down my fun!

If it bothers me, its on me. I'd prefer people didn't have fun trying to ruin others fun, yes. If thats how they have fun however, I cannot begrudge them trying to have fun in whatever way the deem necessary.

I don't have to tolerate it, I actively fight against it in fact, I try to reduce the enjoyment gained so much that they find other ways to amuse themselves, but I cannot fualt anyone for trying to enjoy themselves however they'd like. In a way, I'm having fun the same way they are, by ruining the fun of others, though I only grief those who grief, its the same thing.

Ultimately, you're enjoyment is in your hands. If you start considering others enjoyment you get bogged down. I hate losing, so to care about my enjoyment is to lose every fight.

Ok and not ok are subjective, that argument has no answer so I will not participate.

I'm pretty sure the honour wars were told to stop a while back by Emergence personally, I'm sorta wary of this if it starts getting personal, but I trust you guys won't go that far

Anyway, my little piece on cheap is to me, that definition is anything within reason people can feel hard done by, or angry that was used against them. In other words anything that means I put my win above enjoyment (for both parties more often).

You can settle a fight with a chain BS, or TWoP to stunlock spam, but neither of you will particularly enjoy those resolutions. That's where I draw my line at what is cheap or unhonourable.

*dishonorable.

reason is also subjective.

In my mind, its perfectly reasonable to expect to win every match, in every game, all the time, and I'm unsatisfied whenever this isn't the case. Every time I lose, to for any reason I'm irritated with both myself for losing, and the other player for winning however they won. So any win against me was, knowingly or otherwise, placing winning over enjoyment.

Just because you, or anyone else, don't agree that I'm being reasonable doesn't mean I'm not being reasonable. Reason is all in how one processes information.

Forum Pirate wrote:*dishonorable.

reason is also subjective.

In my mind, its perfectly reasonable to expect to win every match, in every game, all the time, and I'm unsatisfied whenever this isn't the case. Every time I lose, to for any reason I'm irritated with both myself for losing, and the other player for winning however they won. So any win against me was, knowingly or otherwise, placing winning over enjoyment.

Just because you, or anyone else, don't agree that I'm being reasonable doesn't mean I'm not being reasonable. Reason is all in how one processes information.

I think that might be the definition of unreasonable. Also it is irrational to expect to win every match. No matter how good you are there is always someone better. Sure you can strive to be the best, but that doens't have to come at the cost of losing respect for the other fighter. Which is what people who use certain tactics do.

DoughGuy wrote:

Forum Pirate wrote:*dishonorable.

reason is also subjective.

In my mind, its perfectly reasonable to expect to win every match, in every game, all the time, and I'm unsatisfied whenever this isn't the case. Every time I lose, to for any reason I'm irritated with both myself for losing, and the other player for winning however they won. So any win against me was, knowingly or otherwise, placing winning over enjoyment.

Just because you, or anyone else, don't agree that I'm being reasonable doesn't mean I'm not being reasonable. Reason is all in how one processes information.

I think that might be the definition of unreasonable. Also it is irrational to expect to win every match. No matter how good you are there is always someone better. Sure you can strive to be the best, but that doens't have to come at the cost of losing respect for the other fighter. Which is what people who use certain tactics do.

Agreed

Forum Pirate wrote:If it bothers me, its on me. I'd prefer people didn't have fun trying to ruin others fun, yes. If thats how they have fun however, I cannot begrudge them trying to have fun in whatever way the deem necessary.

I don't have to tolerate it, I actively fight against it in fact, I try to reduce the enjoyment gained so much that they find other ways to amuse themselves, but I cannot fualt anyone for trying to enjoy themselves however they'd like. In a way, I'm having fun the same way they are, by ruining the fun of others, though I only grief those who grief, its the same thing.

Ultimately, you're enjoyment is in your hands. If you start considering others enjoyment you get bogged down. I hate losing, so to care about my enjoyment is to lose every fight.

Ok and not ok are subjective, that argument has no answer so I will not participate.

So where does it end? At what point does doing whatever you find fun become a problem? This is just an odd attitude to have considering the many terrible things people can get enjoyment from.

Wow Forum, way to start throwing your ideals around on what is basically just an introduction post

Welcome to the forums Geeza! I myself went through a very similar pattern of Dark Souls development, though in my case it was a TWoP/WoG spammer instead of a buffed Greatsword user

Federally wrote:

Forum Pirate wrote:If it bothers me, its on me. I'd prefer people didn't have fun trying to ruin others fun, yes. If thats how they have fun however, I cannot begrudge them trying to have fun in whatever way the deem necessary.

I don't have to tolerate it, I actively fight against it in fact, I try to reduce the enjoyment gained so much that they find other ways to amuse themselves, but I cannot fualt anyone for trying to enjoy themselves however they'd like. In a way, I'm having fun the same way they are, by ruining the fun of others, though I only grief those who grief, its the same thing.

Ultimately, you're enjoyment is in your hands. If you start considering others enjoyment you get bogged down. I hate losing, so to care about my enjoyment is to lose every fight.

Ok and not ok are subjective, that argument has no answer so I will not participate.

So where does it end? At what point does doing whatever you find fun become a problem? This is just an odd attitude to have considering the many terrible things people can get enjoyment from.

Like BDSM + 50 Shades of Grey, the bitter taste of a gin and tonic,and watching ducks waddle around on land?

First Forum, unhonourable is a word (at least to wikipedia, though we all know how reliable that is) : http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unhonourable

Onto the actual discussion anyways.. I think we've had this discussion before over whether PvP can be enjoyable without winning. I think so. If someone is good enough to beat me (without cheapness), they deserve it. I'm not gonna get mad over it, I just try to get better, and generally I enjoy fights where I get beaten fairly too

A fight to survive is more fun than a fight overpowering your opponent to me.

Also, I wasn't saying you're unreasonable, you're just applying reason in a different way, to a different end.

To be the best, I must expect the best. The best one can achieve is perfection, so I can expect nothing less.



Who are you to say wether or not the opponent respects you? How can you presume to know how they feel? I have no issues backstabing you or casting twop, knowing you don't like it. I respect you, enough to give it everything I have.
If I didn't respect you, I wouldn't play with you at all. The individual decides wether or not they possess respect and how it is shown.


It doesn't end. Everyone is entitled to try to have fun however they'd like. I cannot tell them they're wrong. I can try to reason with them, I can try to stop them, but I cannot look down on them or condemn their actions.

Put in simple terms (though its an enormously complex subject), I believe every being is entitled to try and enforce their will.

EDIT:In believing this, I have reached the conclusion that to judge others is foolish, as I don't believe that any human can truly understand anyone, even themselves. This means that any judgement is ignorant, as I cannot understand the basis of the thing I am judging.