Like genuinely. On any post about PvP problems half the replies are from people giving really big opinions on problems like the state of invasions and balancing issues who clearly don't know what they are talking about.

And when you point it out that their opinions seem like they have no idea what they are talking about 95% of the time they are like "yeah no I hate PvP I have never played it, it sucks and it should be removed from the game because nobody plays it anyway".

Are you... serious? Ignoring the obvious fallacy that just because you don't like it doesn't mean that nobody else likes it, PvP has always been a big thing for all of the soulsborne games, especially when it comes to keeping up the post launch longevity.

As while everyone else leaves except for some few who don't get bored of the main content, PvPers have always stayed around for LITERAL decades.

Hell, invasion youtubers and such have at many times helped put a resurgence into the old souls games. I am not saying that PvE is irrelevant, but it does seem to me like the people who largely play PvE are a lot more inclined to have very selfish views.

And I understand it, they are like "I just want to play in peace I hate invaders", but it's a part... or was a part of a healthy ecosystem. Anyone who has ever been invaded plenty and played the game enough knows how moot every PvEers favourite argument of "You just love to bully noobs" really is. Are there outlyers who do that? Yes. Twinks exist, EVERYONE including the PvP community hates them, but in the end at proper level invasions it's rarely black and white, and it's always been very avoidable, usually your own hubris leads to you getting invaded.

And I've baited invasions to kill them in 1vs1 in low level zones to stop em from killing noobs. I know how hard it can be to get invaded even when you want to be.

And no, duels and fight clubs just can't really replace invasions. Because people don't seem to understand that a lot of invaders aren't really toxic douches. Sure, plenty are and I hate em too, but making everyone miserable ain't the solution. The goal is to co-exist. Invaders will always get frustrated by some things hosts have access to, hosts will always get annoyed by getting invaded. But in the end it always brings more positives to the game than it brings negatives by a large margin.

Let's look at dark souls 3 as example. And I have nothing to back this up, but let's be real here. How many of the 10k players who still play on average according to steam charts do you think are still playing PvE? The PvE content in the end simply... runs out eventually. Amazing as it is, most PvEers barely complete the game they play once, something you can in any game easily verify by looking at the achievements. I'd be willing to bet that of the 10k at least 40% are sticking around for player interactions with such as invasions.

I could continue on the balance issues, I understand you want your favourite op weapon to stay op, but this game IS in the end not just PvE, and a balanced game will always be more fun and bring you more content too.

And this is not me discrediting PvEers. They are important. It's me saying that PvEers should stop discrediting PvPers.

Both sides of the coin have had a massive impact on the game's success and I realize that elden ring has drawn in many new faces who now think they have the absolute best idea on what's going on, but can we take a step back for a moment and realize nobody profits if fromsoftware commits to going down the path of games like COD where they focus on easy broad appeal? They make good games, but even a mainstream title like this works because it still has it's nichè that is largely unfulfilled and alienating a large part of your original players for mass appeal usually leads to a franchise dying off.

Not saying that that is what they are doing. But I just want people to remember that we've always been a big part of this. And hell, I enjoy PvE a ton too, but let's be honest, you can only beat the game so many times and it DOES have a really fun and organic system.

Invasions have always been popular because they are chaotic, you get to fight in cool maps and use things few other games let you play around with.