@Nine IIRC in the BloodSouls games you could turn the PVP off so that the functionality of invasions never worked.

@rebound Playing offline, yes, but if you wanted to do coop that wasn't an option. There was no way to completely stop invasions that didn't also stop co-op play. Even in DS3 which had a password system, that just was to help you group up with friends for co-op effectively. Bloodborne was the only one with a genuine "opt out" sort of system? But even then some high level areas were just hardlocked to invasion enabled.

@rebound otherwise, if you or the host you were teaming up with were level 30 or above, bell ringers spawn in the world, and whilever theyr'e alive, invasions can happen. if you kill the bell ringer though, no more invasions happen (after whoever has already invaded is gone of course... and until you die)

@Nine That seems like poor design. The games are already "hard" enough without the added pressure of, "What if FUCKMASTER42069 shows up to wreck my shit for no reason?"

@rebound Yeeeppp. they're exremely stressful games. I enjoyed them but oh god i hate the pvp so much. ;; it does NOT do my stress levels any good.

@Nine oof

@rebound that said I'm not gonna lie, I had an absolute blast going through the bosses, reading and learning about the lore. Bloodborne is still my favourite in so many ways, especially with the Old Hunters dlc. ..

.. and not gonna lie there were some genuine moments of enjoyable pvp, rare though they were. Like this one guy with a seriously specialised pvp one hit kill build based on bloodtinge? Miq spotted the build immediately.

It went VERY BADLY for the invader. like hilariously badly.

@Nine That sounds really fun.

Of course there's only one true, LEGENDARY build...

GIANTDAD.

@rebound basically guy invaded with no armour on, using Beast Claws and clearly having popped beast pellets or something. Super fast, super deadly. if he could hit. Miq was built with a more conventional PVE build but based also around bloodtinge and had a specific gun that scaled on that. like... scaled a LOT.

so this guy pops in, chugs his beast pellets or whatever, does the beast roar thing to start his combo... miq just pulls an Indiana Jones, shoots him in the face. Instant kill!

@rebound like, ONE BULLET did him in. ONE. What made it even funnier is the guy popped into our world AGAIN, and we spotted him, he spotted us... we just... waved at him. he warped out immediately XD

@Nine https://media.giphy.com/media/RJOYRvEEeMlby/giphy.gif

@rebound it really was EXACTLY like that XD Miq's super good at pvp in those games, he can manage to stay calm and really enjoys good fair pvp when it happens. he doesn't seek it out, but if an invader comes in and plays fair he likes it a lot. I understand that fully. I'm no good at it but I always prefer a combatant who plays fair if it's gonna happen. So when we coop he tends to be my champion ^^; Though interestingly I got surprisingly good at PVP in bloodborne.

@Nine See I couldn't get into those games. I really don't know why, I did enjoy what little I played of DS1

@Nine Honestly it was probably that by the time I got around to trying them out I was already tired of the "LOL DARK SOULS GIT GUD LOLOLOL"

@rebound Yeah I can completely understand that, also the *Souls games have some...

frankly abysmal balance issues. They always have. They have never truly been baalnced, and despite how much I think Bloodborne is the best of the bunch, it still has glaring issues of balance, both PvE and PvP. It's lessened somewhat in that because there's very little diference between an effective PvE build and an effective PvP build, and any difference there is can be accounted for with a second weapon choice.

@rebound but even then, there are some builds that are just... better and more effective all around, and there's still the issue that it massively rewards players who know exactly what they're doing from Day 1 of playing it, and build in a very VERY specific way. Else you're just wasting Echoes.