Wow I always knew DS1 had a lot of depth, but to see it laid out here so eloquently blows my mind, and I've been playing this game off and on since 2013. What's more, I know you only just scratched the surface. What an excellent video. Great work man.
Excellent breakdown that helped me understand a lot more about this game. Your explanations are so clear and concise. It's a treat to watch a video that is composed rather than merely recorded.
If I only had this back in the day. Had to learn by being backstabbed and observing what they did haha. Very detailed and very interesting video, amazing job man.
Same here dude, i didnt even lnow people were doing videos on tech untill around the time remaster was announced. I just assumed everyone was self taught through punch fighting
Pretty sure the entire argument can be summarized as "if it can't be fixed, adapt to it". Only problem is the sugar coating as if the latency itself is a mechanic by downplaying the idea that the game would be better if it had less lag. The answer is: yes, it would be better. No, it won't happen, so if you still wanna find a way to enjoy the game, accept it as a reality. It is what I do, but I at least don't see it as a feature but like something you have to cope with.
Alessandro De Bernardi that’s video games, when they are popular there are litterally millions of people figuring out every single llttle niche and taking advantage of it, so naturally all the best players are the ones taking advantage of every quirk, I hate it too
Probably the most helpful backstab video on UA-cam. Iv watched dozens of then and this video is the only one that explains what exactly is going on the correct way.
Gonna keep it real with you chief, spending two hours in the forest hunters and learning this game basically runs on mechanics not really intended to be seen by the players turned me off fully to pvp.
yea same i really hated ds3 pvp because of ringed knight sword cancel estus cancel splitleaf infinite moveset swaps weapon art moveswaps and hot swaps. dArK sOuLs PvP iS BaD beEcAuSe GlITcH
This is a great video. Also something else I'd like to point out that I used back in the day on 360 in relation to pivot backstabs. If you are running from your opponent, and they give chase. You can turn your camera to face them, and quickly dash towards their side. If you manage to cross past their side, pull your left stick back towards your opponent, and lock on while preforming light attacks. This plays into latency as well, but can catch alot of people off guard.
Wow I've put 1000's of hours into souls pvp over the years and this is without a doubt the most intelligent, in-depth, and insightful advanced tutorial I've ever seen. Fantastic video my friend. It really has me believing Dark Souls can be a high skill ceiling fighting game when you learn to deal with varying latencies.
I hated Dark Souls 1 PvP, but with remastered I want to try it, however I just find myself frustrated, because everybody knows what they're doing, and I am just confused, but now I will be sure to use this video as a reference as I continue on my PvP endeavours.
I feel I should mention Re: latency, it also covers up DS's mad hitbox shenanigans. I've PvP'd over LAN before and been hit by some crazy phantom range.
I think one of us isn't understanding the other. I've had attacks land that didn't visually hit on either player's side, on a negligible latency connection. Neither confirmed locally nor remotely, as it were. :p
I agree that that sort of tech and timing takes skill, but I still think the existence of this stuff is just evidence of a fundamentally broken connection system.
Candy Texture no offense but the idea that fromsoft intentionally gimped the connectivity to create this pvp environment is laughable. I love the studio and everything the make but come on lol
I never suggested that Fromsoft did any of this intentionally. In fact, it's pretty obvious that they are incapable of creating a polished game with depth. The depth that comes from the netcode and core mechanics in this game is a happy accident.
I miss the times when I used to live in Italy and had little to no latency. Greatly well done video, came back to this after grabbing the ds remastered
@@fruitytuesdayz5760 yeah tell me what's bad in having low skill floor...literally, just tell me oh i see. the problem with ds3 is the lack of broken backstabs, broken netcode and broken poise. the funnies pvp ever is in ds1 with rollbs/poisebs/lagbs oneshot backstabs with crystal club as the ONLY working pvp tech you clearly are a masochist dude, i'm dead serious now
@@Муня-ж7з in my opinion having a low skill floor directly effects skill ceiling of the game. ds1 has a high skill floor and because of that has a higher skill ceiling and more opportunities for skill expression. thats my opinion at least. however broken backstabs are fundamental to the game being functional with the poise system and the insane damage of r1 spam type of weapons. that is a fact. one shot backstabs dont exist if u have meta hp. which is 1800 at a minimum. attempting any of the backstabs are usually telegraphed from the players movement and using that u should be able to find a counter. if they try to roll backstab u punish the roll since they are less safe in this game. if they try to poise bs. dont r1 just kick them. if u have a fast weapon or black flame (45 dex) kick r1 or kick black flame is a true combo and will work insanely well against the havel mom great club builds. and i think that poise is actually balanced with the rolls in the game. fast roll has to be 25 percent weight. and mid roll is comically slow it forces players to either choose low poise and use toggling or high poise and not being able to roll and both are effective. as for pvp tech there isnt much fancy stuff besides spell canceling all the backstab cancels and stand still. learning when to use what in random situations is what makes a player good. and yes i am a masochist. and id recommend other people to be masochists as well. dark souls is a game known for its pve being very difficult with a high skill floor and the pvp should be the same. u should give the pvp another try. come to oolacile township at meta lvl im there every day
@@fruitytuesdayz5760 lmao Dark Souls PVE does not have a high skill floor at all, it is just harder than the average modern game and doesn't explain its game mechanics. The PVP is just an unbalanced mess with trash netcode.
like its super cool how there is a completely different Strategy to playing this game, BUT it feels like builds don't really matter if all you do is bait for backstabs. idk just not as enjoyable and Ds2/3 for pvp imo
Any great videos like this one out there that covers the different weapons as it pertains to the pvp meta? Like a tierlist depicting frame date, move sets and the overall outlook as to why X weapon beats Y weapon and so forward? Haven't been able to find anything serious appart from this god tier vid.
Love how people still complain about how the pvp works even though he explains really well how it works. It’s not necessary broken, just different from pvp in other games but people are unwilling to adapt to things they cannot change so they just quit.
Unfortunate truth, my favorite game is dead because people can’t git gud :^) I even made a character called pvp coach to try to help people understand the game by going easy on them and going for the most simple backstabs. To my surprise not many people could do basic counter strafes and I got a shit load of hate mail as well
Some might like it, but its just a result of unintended, unintuitive bad game mechanics design. Complexity is great. But not when its based on exploiting a bad system.
The rock, paper, scissors yomi dynamics seems surprisingly balanced to me, but I barely know anything about the tech so it may be pretty arbitrary as far as competitiveness goes. (It certainly takes skill) I do imagine you can get a lot more mileage out of something that is actually deliberately designed and tuned for this sort of play, but happy accidents can happen. I just hate how far removed from the game as it's presented, though. This sort of thing is not at all what I came to ds pvp for, I prefer fighting people that really play around with the rpg sandbox of the game, preferably with some minimal tech like using ravioli steps in cool combos and stuff. I do want to learn from these players though, I'd like to be able to put up a fight against them instead of having half of it go over my head when I thought I knew what they were doing lol
backstabs are an underrated mechanic because its annoying when u dont understand them fully but they counter alot of shit. also r1 isnt useless it never was u just gotta make sure when u use an r1 ur back better be safe. no more r1 for free amazing gameplay
I know I'm late af but why do people use the Dragon Crest Shield? Is there any reason for it beign special? Also, excellent video, I hope i can git gud and truly enjoy DS1 pvp
Returning to this game after a long stint on DaS 3, was feeling rusty as fuck so looked up some refreshers and this was recommended. Quality video, thanks. Subbed.
Finally, at 6 years after the game's release I understand why people forums always scream at me when I say that kicks are useless and midroll is suicide in dks1 PVP. Living in SEA, I've consistently encountered instances like 4:29 and 4:33 against European players. Kicks actually landing are a rarity, if not a fool's endeavor. Given that Euros are 85% of the player base I end up matching against, it makes sense that the latency results in my gameplay experience being different from the average angry Redditor. Thank you for finally validating my experiences.
the thing about souls mechanics is that everything was intended. souls 1 is actually to most properly balanced because of that fact the those mechanics are intended. if arent willing to take the time to learn and apply the bs fish. you cannot see the that balance.
I'd like to see a count of how many "so THAT'S how they did that to me" moments from people who watched this video after being destroyed by a better player, mine was 4
this was the video i watched to learn how to play better honestly one of the best vids ive ever seen for the topic. the facestabs made so much more sense after watching this glad u learned something aswell stick with the pvp its pretty good. but it is kinda dead
Well this explains a lot about how crap I am at pvp. I might try that twirly backstab thing though. I seem to be having some success drawing invaders in by whipping out chaos fireball and aiming it at my feet, normally the then go for the backstab so maybe I can turn that into a pretty horrifying combo.
I like how you say the depth is ignored by non willingness to learn the backstabbing game but ironically enough it's a gimmick mastered by only those willing and used as the ONLY option eliminating ALL other offensive choices. As a seasoned competitive fighting game player dark souls plays very much like a fighting game.. but when you aim to force lag to abuse for backstabbing (doing nothing else) it looks and sounds just as dull and degenerate as you've displayed. I love the game and the pvp when fighting experienced players like myself who don't rely bug level exploitation back stabbing. I can't imagine anyone defending this as fun without dedicating time to learn it and using it on everyone ignorant of the exploit. Trying to find a solution to this game breaking jank and I find that it is the only viable option.. may as well stick to other Souls pvp..
its actually got a sufficiently deep gameplay when both players are good. the problem is nobody wants to put in the time cuz it looks weird. also apparently u are unwilling to learn the backstab meta game which is ironically why u believe this since u don't have much knowledge on it. most of the tech in the game is avoiding backstabs in super tryhard scenarios backstabs are way less common than in oolacile fighting Havel mom great clubs.
Informative vid, but the problem is differentiating opinions of a better game experience that could've been achieved without necessitating the mastery of unintended dynamics. It's like saying darts is better drunk and the more drunk you are the more professional you become. Some prefer understanding of visual acuity and fine motor skills necessary for tournament play, others would rather find another way to enjoy the game.
How can I stop people who hit me 10 miles away (Not literally that far) and I can't get out of it. Or at least what do I do against them. Also that was a nice vid. I play all the dark souls games and this helped alot
brenduz b depends on why that kind of phantom range is happening. If it's because of lag, then there's not a ton you can do to compensate for it. However, the more likely scenario is that your opponent just has decently high ping compared to you. In that case, you need to consciously compensate for the distance of your opponent depending on how much of a delay there is between your connections. Think of what you see of your opponent as an after-image. Depending on how high your ping is with someone, the farther ahead they are going to be on their screen. So if your opponent walks forward and hits you on their screen, they might appear out of range on your screen. Dealing with this isn't a black and white, right or wrong situation. There are advantages and disadvantages to playing on and with high ping, it's just something that you as a player will need to handle and adapt to in your own way. Best of luck!
If you check a run bs, you can unlock and either pull back on the left joystick or twirl around behind them then lock back on as they're sprinting to your back. You'll end up behind them when they slingshot toward your back on their end allowing you to punish the bs attempt.
This guide is superb. You explained and demonstrated everything well. I just don't understand one part, what does walking > getting up mean? I'm aware there's a tech by which we can cancel the wake up animation and walk or run immediately i just don't know how it's done
Sorry if that was not conveyed properly. The greater-than-sign (>) signifies which of the two has a higher priority over the other. So in the example of quick get up: the animation that follows with the act of walking has a higher priority than the stand-still wake up animation, meaning that you can cancel or cut short the get-up animation by simply unlocking and walking forward. That example has great application as a counter to parry backstab attempts. My buddy Bobman made a great video demonstrating the tech here: ua-cam.com/video/skdhUwW9qx4/v-deo.html Keep in mind that it is inconsistent on excessively high latencies.
Dark Souls pvp gotta be the only PvP game were the players don't complain about lag and latency. While in other games they rage if the game is not 64+ tickrate...
Andrew Signorino Short answer: Mostly Long answer: most weapons don't stand up to chaos blade in a competitive environment where healing is not permitted. It's damage, superior moveset, and length usually trumps most +15 weapons. Crystal reinforcement allows for a large amount of weapons like pike, kumo, estoc, halberd, and claymore to compete damage wise. It is possible to have 10s of crystal weapons in your inventory so you didn't have to worry about losing your primary source of damage once it breaks. Depending on how you play, it can be worth it to you to invest in the upgrades, but there's really nothing wrong with sticking with +15, which is only marginally worse.
Im curious if the latency meta game will still take affect when remastered comes out considering they are reworking the netcode, although i am sure it will still be around.
In theory, yes. It's good practice to "kick confirm" your backstabs as much as is realistically possible to ensure you're not leaving yourself open should you mis-time your bs or are purposefully countered by something like standstill to bait a light attack.
Depends on the person who is hosting the tournament. There have been regional tournaments in the past, but you're unlikely to see tournaments in the vein of a ping range (i.e. 0 ping to 120 ping) purely because of how much latency fluctuates .
Clearing the confusion does not encourage me to become better. The more I learn about PvP in dark souls the more I'm inclined to ALT+F4 every time someone invades.
G Creature To each their own, the PvP in this game is not for everyone. The point of this video was to showcase in a neutral light the side of PvP which most people neglect or ignore. So if you got a good idea of what the PvP is actually like and determined that it's not for you, then the video has served its purpose all the same as if you thought you might enjoy it. That being said, I personally advocate everyone who enjoys the base game and casual PvP to give meta play a fair shot before writing it off.
I have played souls games since 2011. I have tried getting into PvP in each and every single one of them and I have had no fun whatsoever. I joined a discord group recently and tried to get into it again, to no avail. I get panic attacks, I invariably get destroyed and all it does is make me progressively more depressed until I just close the game and don't touch it for a few days.
Guess now I know why I was getting rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeekkkktttt in DSR, even though I was absolutely great at "casual pvp" in normal Dark Souls while it was still sort of actively played. Will try to incorporate these into my pvp gameplay.
I'm very late to the party and just recently started with PVP but I have to say, the netcode just sucks. And while I can see why some people think that learning how to play around latency can be a totally cool thing, etc. it completely kills my immersion in the game. It's just a competitive thing at this point, just as querky as speed runs or abusing other mechanics like animation override. That's not good game design. While I agree with some comments that it adds a lot of depth to the multiplayer aspects of the game, it doesn't add to the quality of the game itself in my opinion. The quality of a multiplayer aspect of a game is at least partially connected to how close what I see on my screen is to what happens on the other player's screen. That's why I hate and always will hate player hosted multiplayer.
Pvp is too big a part of the game to be FULLY optional, not mentioning the replay value it adds. Say you want to coop with friends to do pve, you still have to deal with invaders.
I used to do a lot of DeS/DkS pvp back in the day. I gave DkS3 pvp a whirl recently and it made me yearn for the days of just feeding backstabs to people who would r1 carelessly. So many people would just grab a slow, heavy weapon and whiff r1s hoping you walk into their hyper armor. Yeah sure I can dodge that Gael sword all day but if I ever try to whiff punish they just do their follow up and trade for like 80% of my life. So I’m just playing this slow game of dodging everything and taking the occasional pot shot when I know it’s safe. The game can be real fun when you’re playing fast weapon vs fast weapon, but it really suffers from how hard it is to stop your opponent from playing like an idiot. You can use crossbows or kukri or w/e but that’s like giving a slap on the wrist. I miss chunking healthbars because somebody got too predictable with their attack timings. I’d love to go back to dks1 pvp for my souls fix, but my PC is dead and I’m guessing that’s where all the comp players are these days. At least I have Tekken. P.S. I don’t think the animation priority theory really works as a model to explain how all that stuff you were talking about works. Some stuff does not really add up. Like, hitstun must clearly take priority over an attack animation, since your attack will be interrupted if you get hit and don’t have the poise to tank it. And weapon swapping must have priority over hit stun to make the swap escape possible. So swap > hitstun > attack. So how come inputting a swap in the middle of an attack doesn’t cancel the attack animation into a swap? There’s more going on than a simple priority ladder.
If priority is looked at as a simple ladder, a lot of the logic wouldn't add up. I've presented the information as simply as I could in the video to address it's existence to people who were not aware, and to provide a groundwork for understanding more complex interactions like the parry backstab and option selects. The example you've highlighted is one of the many examples of fluid priority of certain animations as they are playing out. i.e when you initiate an attack animation, it's completion takes priority over all player inputted animations and can only be interrupted by outside factors which result in a stun or kick or the like. You can find these kinds of examples all over the place, so following some kind of flow chart isn't very reliable, it's on a case by case basis which animation will take priority over another.
Sl 125 meta in 2021 is cancer xD I can't figure out when to be rude or nice. People backstab me in my gestures and I don't understand the edict lol I started interrupting peoples fights and it seems that it gets you a very good carvings xD Bipolar respect I guess
etiquette is as follows. dont duel in the township dont expect honor dont bow pre fight basically. fight host. if its a gravelord just rave out and backstab as many people as you can. 6 man gravelord FFA is really fucking fun
Man this depresses me. I'm a decent player against engine but fail miserably against people. I truly just want to learn how to defend myself against invaders. How should I begin? Build low level character and invade them? Any suggestions? Thanks for the video.
Damon Hazelwood Habits that you have developed against PvE are going to be heavily exploited by PvPers. Try not to get too frustrated, and realize that many of the players you're going to go up against have more experience than you do. You're going to die a lot before you get better, and that's something you'll have to take in spades. The best advise I can give you is to practice a ton in a PvP area, make a PvP build and just play. Remain conscious of what you are doing, take note if it can be exploited by your opponent, and train yourself to learn from your deaths. Analyze why you lost, and adapt your play so you don't lose in that same way again. Dark Souls is really a game about punishing mistakes, and one of if not the best way to improve is to put yourself in an environment where your weaknesses are constantly being targeted. The early learning stages are rough, but perseverance is key to improving. Best of luck!
Man awesome advice thank you so much for taking the time to respond. It makes alot of sense I had to die a ton to get pass bosses so this will be a new challenge. I will go in with that mindset. Thanks 😊
Is this still the same in Dark Souls Remastered? They added dedicated servers right? Or is it still p2p with the servers only effecting the match making or something. I noticed this was made like right before Dark Souls Remastered was released which is kinda odd so was just curious.
ace052330 It's pretty much exactly the same with some timing differences because of the optimized 60 fps. The latter of what you said about servers is true, the dedicated server is only for matchmaking and all connections are still p2p.
how bout i go fashion souls and try to experience new things and have fun by trying to make varying experiments? i die by tryhards that try to go for the easiest wins so they can feel like they are good when in reality they just want to win as easily as possible.
Iman Fathi No one is telling you how you should or shouldn't play. As I said in the beginning of my video, what I presented here is purely informational. What you decide to do with this information is your prerogative. That is the beauty of Dark Souls and why I enjoy it so much, you can play however you want to play and no one can stop you.
3:49 I'm sorry, but no amount of information that you're delivering to us is not going to convince me to give the PVP in this game a fair chance. I should't HAVE to estimate how much ping someone has. I shouln't HAVE to be paired up with someone with a different ping than mine. The game shouldn't NEED to be this fucking trash in this regard, but it is. It's fucking TRASH.
That's fine, no one is forcing you to play. While there's a persuasive element to the video, it's predominantly informative of the foundational elements used in meta play. If you don't like what you see, or you've tried it and don't like it, then you know to steer clear.
So darksouls pvp is a complete and total mess and you need to know network engineering to git gud. Exactly what I want to hear, a game community that advocates that seeing someone teleport behind you into a one shot backstab somehow makes them more skilled then you.
@@ThreeGoddesses Your 2nd statement isnt correct, as it goes both ways actually. Everytime you fight someone different, you will need to condition yourself to their latency. Imagine both parties put into different arenas where the laws of physics change with every player, in this case timings on when to pivot, how long to standstill, etc Its ironicly intimate to take the time and understand your opponent's lat, same as them as well. The beauty of this game is that, it allows you to adapt said to said latency and have fun regardless of how high or low it is, you just have to put effort in it. This also nicely segways into the issue of other competitive games being ruined by bad connection. Dks's pvp is genuinely one of the best examples of a happy accident and it does not suffer from that. Although in the end, its your choice to put in the effort for said fun. I fully understand that you don't enjoy this game's pvp but please don't simply brush it off to just lagstab, lagstab, lagstab
If Dark Souls Remastered got an engine face lift it would be legendary. But keep all the classic feels of deliberate gameplay of dark souls 1. PVP's only issue is latency, and backstabs. Backstabs should have something similar to dark souls 3, where backstab animation plays, but if they move quickly they can escape, and with latency fixes it wouldnt be too broken unless you are able to punish them for mistakes. Things like animation priority and perfect blocks arent too bad of an issue and wouldnt need to be fixed unless they break the game while fixing other aspects of the game, even dark souls 3 has animation priority, backstab a winged knight in lothric castle, then when he gets back up parry his back and spam r1, to get another backstab. The parry animation will stop half-way through.
this vid rocks and rolls like mcdonalds vhs tapes and i show it to everyone who wants to give pvp a fair shake
Wow I always knew DS1 had a lot of depth, but to see it laid out here so eloquently blows my mind, and I've been playing this game off and on since 2013. What's more, I know you only just scratched the surface. What an excellent video. Great work man.
"This part won't be half as long"
Is exactly half as long
This is old but not irrelevant, good work brother even if you don’t see this, you did an excellent job with this video.
Excellent breakdown that helped me understand a lot more about this game. Your explanations are so clear and concise. It's a treat to watch a video that is composed rather than merely recorded.
If I only had this back in the day. Had to learn by being backstabbed and observing what they did haha. Very detailed and very interesting video, amazing job man.
Same here dude, i didnt even lnow people were doing videos on tech untill around the time remaster was announced. I just assumed everyone was self taught through punch fighting
Excellent guide dude! really impressive stuff.
Pretty sure the entire argument can be summarized as "if it can't be fixed, adapt to it". Only problem is the sugar coating as if the latency itself is a mechanic by downplaying the idea that the game would be better if it had less lag.
The answer is: yes, it would be better. No, it won't happen, so if you still wanna find a way to enjoy the game, accept it as a reality. It is what I do, but I at least don't see it as a feature but like something you have to cope with.
Well said. Lag stabs don't add depth to the game and should not be glorified. We just have to deal with it
Amazing video, still don't like the fact how back stabs play a major role in the pvp of this game and how messy the netcode is.
Alessandro De Bernardi that’s video games, when they are popular there are litterally millions of people figuring out every single llttle niche and taking advantage of it, so naturally all the best players are the ones taking advantage of every quirk, I hate it too
I love how everyone just backstabs
Oh what’s this you’re trying to have fun uh oh sorry fucker get backstabbed from half across the map, FUCK YOU!
@@spaghettisouls2025 That's not how it works...
@@dam4253 It is
@@MrRoyVega no not really
I love when games have such an in depth competitive meta based on unintended bugs
Are you a melee fan?
This video is the 'Dark Souls' of pvp tutorials.
The Visual Guide to Near-Glitches and Poor Design Abuse: Dark Souls Edition.
Yes.
Probably the most helpful backstab video on UA-cam. Iv watched dozens of then and this video is the only one that explains what exactly is going on the correct way.
Gonna keep it real with you chief, spending two hours in the forest hunters and learning this game basically runs on mechanics not really intended to be seen by the players turned me off fully to pvp.
Oh no, you wasted 2 hours! Shit now i feel guilty about my 1000 hours
yea same i really hated ds3 pvp because of ringed knight sword cancel estus cancel splitleaf infinite moveset swaps weapon art moveswaps and hot swaps. dArK sOuLs PvP iS BaD beEcAuSe GlITcH
@@fruitytuesdayz5760it's nice Miyazaki stuck to the ds3 pvp theme of "lots of broken shit" in his next game so we'd know what to expect
This is a great video. Also something else I'd like to point out that I used back in the day on 360 in relation to pivot backstabs. If you are running from your opponent, and they give chase. You can turn your camera to face them, and quickly dash towards their side. If you manage to cross past their side, pull your left stick back towards your opponent, and lock on while preforming light attacks. This plays into latency as well, but can catch alot of people off guard.
This is really well done, good job dude.
You are really well done babe
Wow I've put 1000's of hours into souls pvp over the years and this is without a doubt the most intelligent, in-depth, and insightful advanced tutorial I've ever seen. Fantastic video my friend. It really has me believing Dark Souls can be a high skill ceiling fighting game when you learn to deal with varying latencies.
It's so sad to hear that.. All that time in pvp and your online way to win is trying a backstab? Like anyone else in this game..
@@antoniorivolta783 only a part of the video talks about backstabs lol
@@hil449 so? Lol
@@antoniorivolta783 stick with dark souls 3 were the skill floor is having a prefrontal cortex. have fun r1ing the air. 🗿 the 15th one is a mixup 🗿
Wow, thanks man, you just completly changed my view. Really good quality o
video as well.
I fucking knew I was missing a lot about PVP...
Thanks! Video deserves a lot more views and likes.
I hated Dark Souls 1 PvP, but with remastered I want to try it, however I just find myself frustrated, because everybody knows what they're doing, and I am just confused, but now I will be sure to use this video as a reference as I continue on my PvP endeavours.
I feel I should mention Re: latency, it also covers up DS's mad hitbox shenanigans. I've PvP'd over LAN before and been hit by some crazy phantom range.
I think one of us isn't understanding the other. I've had attacks land that didn't visually hit on either player's side, on a negligible latency connection. Neither confirmed locally nor remotely, as it were. :p
Four years too late. One year too early. But somehow still managed to find its way into my recommended tab anyways.
You said it perfectly
Well done. This video has actually helped me improve the most out of any other Dks video. Luv u dad
Amazing video. I already love the ds1 pvp more than the others but don’t really understand it. This helped a lot.
I agree that that sort of tech and timing takes skill, but I still think the existence of this stuff is just evidence of a fundamentally broken connection system.
Candy Texture no offense but the idea that fromsoft intentionally gimped the connectivity to create this pvp environment is laughable. I love the studio and everything the make but come on lol
I never suggested that Fromsoft did any of this intentionally. In fact, it's pretty obvious that they are incapable of creating a polished game with depth. The depth that comes from the netcode and core mechanics in this game is a happy accident.
how the fuck is backstabbing only fun at all bro i'm literally trying to chill with my friend in PVE and keep getting invaded + backstab
We’re still waiting for pvp 102 :(
Awesome video dude! Lots of great explanations and moves on here!
insanely well made vid sub, very eloquent,
respect
This Video is 4 years too late :^)
on a serious note: thats a great vid Sub
Good Job
Remaster :)
Remaster is commig :3
You mean 1 year early?
Not late just ahead of its time. Remaster boiiis
I might be a little late to the party
THAT'S IT ! Thank you. teaching winner's mindset: prioritizing real gamemechanics over my interpretation how the game should be.
I miss the times when I used to live in Italy and had little to no latency. Greatly well done video, came back to this after grabbing the ds remastered
I knew dark souls 1 pvp was more complicated then the rest. but holy shit, there's no end to the techniques. i can't wait to see some in practice
It's not complicated, it's outright broken. Ds2-3 has better pvp in any sence.
@@Муня-ж7з stick with dark souls 3 were the skill floor is having a prefrontal cortex. have fun r1ing the air. 🗿 the 15th one is a mixup 🗿
@@fruitytuesdayz5760 yeah tell me what's bad in having low skill floor...literally, just tell me
oh i see. the problem with ds3 is the lack of broken backstabs, broken netcode and broken poise. the funnies pvp ever is in ds1 with rollbs/poisebs/lagbs oneshot backstabs with crystal club as the ONLY working pvp tech
you clearly are a masochist dude, i'm dead serious now
@@Муня-ж7з in my opinion having a low skill floor directly effects skill ceiling of the game. ds1 has a high skill floor and because of that has a higher skill ceiling and more opportunities for skill expression. thats my opinion at least.
however broken backstabs are fundamental to the game being functional with the poise system and the insane damage of r1 spam type of weapons. that is a fact. one shot backstabs dont exist if u have meta hp. which is 1800 at a minimum. attempting any of the backstabs are usually telegraphed from the players movement and using that u should be able to find a counter. if they try to roll backstab u punish the roll since they are less safe in this game. if they try to poise bs. dont r1 just kick them. if u have a fast weapon or black flame (45 dex) kick r1 or kick black flame is a true combo and will work insanely well against the havel mom great club builds. and i think that poise is actually balanced with the rolls in the game. fast roll has to be 25 percent weight. and mid roll is comically slow it forces players to either choose low poise and use toggling or high poise and not being able to roll and both are effective. as for pvp tech there isnt much fancy stuff besides spell canceling all the backstab cancels and stand still. learning when to use what in random situations is what makes a player good.
and yes i am a masochist. and id recommend other people to be masochists as well. dark souls is a game known for its pve being very difficult with a high skill floor and the pvp should be the same. u should give the pvp another try. come to oolacile township at meta lvl im there every day
@@fruitytuesdayz5760 lmao Dark Souls PVE does not have a high skill floor at all, it is just harder than the average modern game and doesn't explain its game mechanics. The PVP is just an unbalanced mess with trash netcode.
More relevant now. The average is like 3/4 people i encounter are 'face' backstabbing.
like its super cool how there is a completely different Strategy to playing this game, BUT it feels like builds don't really matter if all you do is bait for backstabs. idk just not as enjoyable and Ds2/3 for pvp imo
has higher skill ceiling and skill expression. thats why i love this game more.
this is really well made good job man I'd like to see more stuff from you in the future
Any great videos like this one out there that covers the different weapons as it pertains to the pvp meta? Like a tierlist depicting frame date, move sets and the overall outlook as to why X weapon beats Y weapon and so forward?
Haven't been able to find anything serious appart from this god tier vid.
mask of the mother is symbolic in ds1 of sweaty tryhard
Its symbolic of people with braincells that can realise 10% hp is better than 0%
This clears up a bit. Thanks for being exhaustive.
Needs more views, this is even more relevant with the remaster out.
pretty stellar
well done
this guy is a fountain of knowledge
Love how people still complain about how the pvp works even though he explains really well how it works. It’s not necessary broken, just different from pvp in other games but people are unwilling to adapt to things they cannot change so they just quit.
Unfortunate truth, my favorite game is dead because people can’t git gud :^) I even made a character called pvp coach to try to help people understand the game by going easy on them and going for the most simple backstabs. To my surprise not many people could do basic counter strafes and I got a shit load of hate mail as well
Some might like it, but its just a result of unintended, unintuitive bad game mechanics design. Complexity is great. But not when its based on exploiting a bad system.
The rock, paper, scissors yomi dynamics seems surprisingly balanced to me, but I barely know anything about the tech so it may be pretty arbitrary as far as competitiveness goes. (It certainly takes skill)
I do imagine you can get a lot more mileage out of something that is actually deliberately designed and tuned for this sort of play, but happy accidents can happen.
I just hate how far removed from the game as it's presented, though.
This sort of thing is not at all what I came to ds pvp for, I prefer fighting people that really play around with the rpg sandbox of the game, preferably with some minimal tech like using ravioli steps in cool combos and stuff.
I do want to learn from these players though, I'd like to be able to put up a fight against them instead of having half of it go over my head when I thought I knew what they were doing lol
Am I the only one who thinks that backstabs actually ruin pvp and that the game would be much better without them? (at least the pvp)
yeah
If you want cb to become even stronger sure
backstabs are an underrated mechanic because its annoying when u dont understand them fully but they counter alot of shit. also r1 isnt useless it never was u just gotta make sure when u use an r1 ur back better be safe. no more r1 for free amazing gameplay
abso-fucken-lutely
….you had me at your disclaimer. *deeply bows* thank you
I know I'm late af but why do people use the Dragon Crest Shield? Is there any reason for it beign special?
Also, excellent video, I hope i can git gud and truly enjoy DS1 pvp
High fire resist, great combustion is pretty ubiquitous,
Returning to this game after a long stint on DaS 3, was feeling rusty as fuck so looked up some refreshers and this was recommended. Quality video, thanks. Subbed.
Have you got a weapon tier list thanks
fantastic helm my son
Finally, at 6 years after the game's release I understand why people forums always scream at me when I say that kicks are useless and midroll is suicide in dks1 PVP.
Living in SEA, I've consistently encountered instances like 4:29 and 4:33 against European players. Kicks actually landing are a rarity, if not a fool's endeavor. Given that Euros are 85% of the player base I end up matching against, it makes sense that the latency results in my gameplay experience being different from the average angry Redditor. Thank you for finally validating my experiences.
33 players didnt like the video cuz they wanted exclusive info about this topic
Subbed. For the dedication to souls pvp alone. One question though, where do you get info like animation priority from?
hakametal Experience and testing.
So essentially people took what's broken in the game and turned it into part of the gameplay? How nice...
the thing about souls mechanics is that everything was intended. souls 1 is actually to most properly balanced because of that fact the those mechanics are intended. if arent willing to take the time to learn and apply the bs fish. you cannot see the that balance.
wheres the footsies tutorial bro
not bad not bad at all.
I'd like to see a count of how many "so THAT'S how they did that to me" moments from people who watched this video after being destroyed by a better player, mine was 4
this was the video i watched to learn how to play better honestly one of the best vids ive ever seen for the topic. the facestabs made so much more sense after watching this glad u learned something aswell stick with the pvp its pretty good. but it is kinda dead
"When you optimize the fun out of the game" on a whole new level
Honestly high skill level pvp feels pretty good in this game i could imagine that it sucks for newer players though
Well this explains a lot about how crap I am at pvp.
I might try that twirly backstab thing though. I seem to be having some success drawing invaders in by whipping out chaos fireball and aiming it at my feet, normally the then go for the backstab so maybe I can turn that into a pretty horrifying combo.
yessss. are you ready!?
oh. so u are nick paris! gonna watch it in a while
Anyone know if anything from this vid has changed with Remastered? Is it all still applicable? And, great vid.
There have been some substantial changes, but everything mentioned in this video still applies to the remaster.
I like how you say the depth is ignored by non willingness to learn the backstabbing game but ironically enough it's a gimmick mastered by only those willing and used as the ONLY option eliminating ALL other offensive choices.
As a seasoned competitive fighting game player dark souls plays very much like a fighting game.. but when you aim to force lag to abuse for backstabbing (doing nothing else) it looks and sounds just as dull and degenerate as you've displayed. I love the game and the pvp when fighting experienced players like myself who don't rely bug level exploitation back stabbing.
I can't imagine anyone defending this as fun without dedicating time to learn it and using it on everyone ignorant of the exploit.
Trying to find a solution to this game breaking jank and I find that it is the only viable option.. may as well stick to other Souls pvp..
its actually got a sufficiently deep gameplay when both players are good. the problem is nobody wants to put in the time cuz it looks weird.
also apparently u are unwilling to learn the backstab meta game which is ironically why u believe this since u don't have much knowledge on it. most of the tech in the game is avoiding backstabs in super tryhard scenarios backstabs are way less common than in oolacile fighting Havel mom great clubs.
If you think exploiting exclusively one game gimmick as a legit strategy you probably should be playing melee instead
Informative vid, but the problem is differentiating opinions of a better game experience that could've been achieved without necessitating the mastery of unintended dynamics. It's like saying darts is better drunk and the more drunk you are the more professional you become. Some prefer understanding of visual acuity and fine motor skills necessary for tournament play, others would rather find another way to enjoy the game.
the fundamental difference between japanese and... normal people
How can I stop people who hit me 10 miles away (Not literally that far) and I can't get out of it. Or at least what do I do against them. Also that was a nice vid. I play all the dark souls games and this helped alot
brenduz b depends on why that kind of phantom range is happening. If it's because of lag, then there's not a ton you can do to compensate for it. However, the more likely scenario is that your opponent just has decently high ping compared to you. In that case, you need to consciously compensate for the distance of your opponent depending on how much of a delay there is between your connections.
Think of what you see of your opponent as an after-image. Depending on how high your ping is with someone, the farther ahead they are going to be on their screen. So if your opponent walks forward and hits you on their screen, they might appear out of range on your screen. Dealing with this isn't a black and white, right or wrong situation. There are advantages and disadvantages to playing on and with high ping, it's just something that you as a player will need to handle and adapt to in your own way. Best of luck!
OKay I get it now thanks cause I usually just sit there and take it sometimes but I think I can do more now that I know more about it
This really really helped me improve in the game, thanks alot!
So in the Pivot backstab section I can use those techs to punish strife backstabs. But how would I apply this to someone running backstabbing me?
If you check a run bs, you can unlock and either pull back on the left joystick or twirl around behind them then lock back on as they're sprinting to your back. You'll end up behind them when they slingshot toward your back on their end allowing you to punish the bs attempt.
This guide is superb. You explained and demonstrated everything well. I just don't understand one part, what does walking > getting up mean? I'm aware there's a tech by which we can cancel the wake up animation and walk or run immediately i just don't know how it's done
Sorry if that was not conveyed properly. The greater-than-sign (>) signifies which of the two has a higher priority over the other. So in the example of quick get up: the animation that follows with the act of walking has a higher priority than the stand-still wake up animation, meaning that you can cancel or cut short the get-up animation by simply unlocking and walking forward.
That example has great application as a counter to parry backstab attempts. My buddy Bobman made a great video demonstrating the tech here: ua-cam.com/video/skdhUwW9qx4/v-deo.html
Keep in mind that it is inconsistent on excessively high latencies.
Sub Ah, so we can simply walk out and it will work. Thanks man :)
so basically for all the people who dont like backstabs, either:
get used to it and abuse it like everyone else or stop playing :)
Dark Souls pvp gotta be the only PvP game were the players don't complain about lag and latency. While in other games they rage if the game is not 64+ tickrate...
Because when the game has no lag there is only you and your skill to blame. While here you can't really know 100%
Linked this video to a DS2 DS3 Pvper. let them know how different the 3 souls games are.
yo in the start i was like man this sound like a boring presentation. but this video is really informative
great video but why use a crystal weapon? is it worth it to farm the sword again and chunks for an extra 30 or 40 ar?
Andrew Signorino Short answer: Mostly
Long answer: most weapons don't stand up to chaos blade in a competitive environment where healing is not permitted. It's damage, superior moveset, and length usually trumps most +15 weapons. Crystal reinforcement allows for a large amount of weapons like pike, kumo, estoc, halberd, and claymore to compete damage wise. It is possible to have 10s of crystal weapons in your inventory so you didn't have to worry about losing your primary source of damage once it breaks. Depending on how you play, it can be worth it to you to invest in the upgrades, but there's really nothing wrong with sticking with +15, which is only marginally worse.
Im curious if the latency meta game will still take affect when remastered comes out considering they are reworking the netcode, although i am sure it will still be around.
Salty Fry QLOC is not going to be reworking the netcode, so it will likely function identically to the original.
14:52 does that mean kicking for every back stab would be a good habit to develop?
In theory, yes. It's good practice to "kick confirm" your backstabs as much as is realistically possible to ensure you're not leaving yourself open should you mis-time your bs or are purposefully countered by something like standstill to bait a light attack.
Excellent video. Thanks.
but the playlist link is broken :O
Oh yeah works now. Appreciate it.
will there be tournaments based on latency brackets?
Depends on the person who is hosting the tournament. There have been regional tournaments in the past, but you're unlikely to see tournaments in the vein of a ping range (i.e. 0 ping to 120 ping) purely because of how much latency fluctuates .
Clearing the confusion does not encourage me to become better. The more I learn about PvP in dark souls the more I'm inclined to ALT+F4 every time someone invades.
G Creature To each their own, the PvP in this game is not for everyone. The point of this video was to showcase in a neutral light the side of PvP which most people neglect or ignore. So if you got a good idea of what the PvP is actually like and determined that it's not for you, then the video has served its purpose all the same as if you thought you might enjoy it.
That being said, I personally advocate everyone who enjoys the base game and casual PvP to give meta play a fair shot before writing it off.
I have played souls games since 2011. I have tried getting into PvP in each and every single one of them and I have had no fun whatsoever. I joined a discord group recently and tried to get into it again, to no avail. I get panic attacks, I invariably get destroyed and all it does is make me progressively more depressed until I just close the game and don't touch it for a few days.
Dang Sub. You seem so... sane... and reasonable. Not at all like every single other member of the Dark Souls 1 meta community I've ever observed.
This is hardly the type of player you’re going to encounter in a typical invasion.
Cant
wait
to
rect
my
friend
now.
This is why i prefer DS2 pvp :P
finally i found this
Guess now I know why I was getting rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeekkkktttt in DSR, even though I was absolutely great at "casual pvp" in normal Dark Souls while it was still sort of actively played. Will try to incorporate these into my pvp gameplay.
Sometimes i miss parrying peoples first in range swing.
I'm very late to the party and just recently started with PVP but I have to say, the netcode just sucks. And while I can see why some people think that learning how to play around latency can be a totally cool thing, etc. it completely kills my immersion in the game. It's just a competitive thing at this point, just as querky as speed runs or abusing other mechanics like animation override.
That's not good game design. While I agree with some comments that it adds a lot of depth to the multiplayer aspects of the game, it doesn't add to the quality of the game itself in my opinion.
The quality of a multiplayer aspect of a game is at least partially connected to how close what I see on my screen is to what happens on the other player's screen. That's why I hate and always will hate player hosted multiplayer.
That’s just how all the souls works man. For immersion reasons I think about it like ur fighting after images
Only pvp ived liked in a souls game
everything from 4 mins on is ALL thats EVER happened to me in DS PVP. I honestly despise it and wish the pvp was fully optional.
It is
It is optinal though, and noone is going to echo chamber you here.
Pvp is too big a part of the game to be FULLY optional, not mentioning the replay value it adds. Say you want to coop with friends to do pve, you still have to deal with invaders.
@@camil914 then fix BS like that
@@evilnick2885 I agree it should have been fixed, it's game breaking. I was mostly answering the others saying it's completely optional.
I used to do a lot of DeS/DkS pvp back in the day. I gave DkS3 pvp a whirl recently and it made me yearn for the days of just feeding backstabs to people who would r1 carelessly. So many people would just grab a slow, heavy weapon and whiff r1s hoping you walk into their hyper armor. Yeah sure I can dodge that Gael sword all day but if I ever try to whiff punish they just do their follow up and trade for like 80% of my life. So I’m just playing this slow game of dodging everything and taking the occasional pot shot when I know it’s safe. The game can be real fun when you’re playing fast weapon vs fast weapon, but it really suffers from how hard it is to stop your opponent from playing like an idiot. You can use crossbows or kukri or w/e but that’s like giving a slap on the wrist. I miss chunking healthbars because somebody got too predictable with their attack timings. I’d love to go back to dks1 pvp for my souls fix, but my PC is dead and I’m guessing that’s where all the comp players are these days.
At least I have Tekken.
P.S. I don’t think the animation priority theory really works as a model to explain how all that stuff you were talking about works. Some stuff does not really add up. Like, hitstun must clearly take priority over an attack animation, since your attack will be interrupted if you get hit and don’t have the poise to tank it. And weapon swapping must have priority over hit stun to make the swap escape possible. So swap > hitstun > attack. So how come inputting a swap in the middle of an attack doesn’t cancel the attack animation into a swap? There’s more going on than a simple priority ladder.
If priority is looked at as a simple ladder, a lot of the logic wouldn't add up. I've presented the information as simply as I could in the video to address it's existence to people who were not aware, and to provide a groundwork for understanding more complex interactions like the parry backstab and option selects. The example you've highlighted is one of the many examples of fluid priority of certain animations as they are playing out. i.e when you initiate an attack animation, it's completion takes priority over all player inputted animations and can only be interrupted by outside factors which result in a stun or kick or the like. You can find these kinds of examples all over the place, so following some kind of flow chart isn't very reliable, it's on a case by case basis which animation will take priority over another.
can you remake 1 for remastered, and just add a backstab montage?
Can I react to this video on my channel it's very accurate
Sl 125 meta in 2021 is cancer xD I can't figure out when to be rude or nice. People backstab me in my gestures and I don't understand the edict lol I started interrupting peoples fights and it seems that it gets you a very good carvings xD Bipolar respect I guess
etiquette is as follows. dont duel in the township dont expect honor dont bow pre fight basically. fight host. if its a gravelord just rave out and backstab as many people as you can. 6 man gravelord FFA is really fucking fun
Man this depresses me. I'm a decent player against engine but fail miserably against people. I truly just want to learn how to defend myself against invaders. How should I begin? Build low level character and invade them? Any suggestions? Thanks for the video.
Damon Hazelwood Habits that you have developed against PvE are going to be heavily exploited by PvPers. Try not to get too frustrated, and realize that many of the players you're going to go up against have more experience than you do. You're going to die a lot before you get better, and that's something you'll have to take in spades.
The best advise I can give you is to practice a ton in a PvP area, make a PvP build and just play. Remain conscious of what you are doing, take note if it can be exploited by your opponent, and train yourself to learn from your deaths. Analyze why you lost, and adapt your play so you don't lose in that same way again. Dark Souls is really a game about punishing mistakes, and one of if not the best way to improve is to put yourself in an environment where your weaknesses are constantly being targeted. The early learning stages are rough, but perseverance is key to improving. Best of luck!
Man awesome advice thank you so much for taking the time to respond. It makes alot of sense I had to die a ton to get pass bosses so this will be a new challenge. I will go in with that mindset. Thanks 😊
thanks for the video
thanks buddy
Is this still the same in Dark Souls Remastered? They added dedicated servers right? Or is it still p2p with the servers only effecting the match making or something. I noticed this was made like right before Dark Souls Remastered was released which is kinda odd so was just curious.
ace052330 It's pretty much exactly the same with some timing differences because of the optimized 60 fps. The latter of what you said about servers is true, the dedicated server is only for matchmaking and all connections are still p2p.
how bout i go fashion souls and try to experience new things and have fun by trying to make varying experiments? i die by tryhards that try to go for the easiest wins so they can feel like they are good when in reality they just want to win as easily as possible.
Iman Fathi No one is telling you how you should or shouldn't play. As I said in the beginning of my video, what I presented here is purely informational. What you decide to do with this information is your prerogative. That is the beauty of Dark Souls and why I enjoy it so much, you can play however you want to play and no one can stop you.
i've heard it called favor the shooter
Obviously it's a bit more complicated than that with the spaghetti code, but yeah that's a good term for it in a different context
3:49 I'm sorry, but no amount of information that you're delivering to us is not going to convince me to give the PVP in this game a fair chance.
I should't HAVE to estimate how much ping someone has.
I shouln't HAVE to be paired up with someone with a different ping than mine.
The game shouldn't NEED to be this fucking trash in this regard, but it is. It's fucking TRASH.
That's fine, no one is forcing you to play. While there's a persuasive element to the video, it's predominantly informative of the foundational elements used in meta play. If you don't like what you see, or you've tried it and don't like it, then you know to steer clear.
doesnt win = bad. noob mindset stick to dark souls 3 where the skill floor and ceiling are a flatline
Anyone know what happend to this guy? i heard he was abducted to area 51 because of all the stuff he knew about ds
I always did but now I know why it works 😂 thank you so much
This is why I hate Oolacile
@ This is why I love Oolacile
@@BlackStoneDiamond which one u at now?
@@fruitytuesdayz5760 I (used to) meme roll Oolacile
@@BlackStoneDiamond classy
So darksouls pvp is a complete and total mess and you need to know network engineering to git gud.
Exactly what I want to hear, a game community that advocates that seeing someone teleport behind you into a one shot backstab somehow makes them more skilled then you.
I shouldnt be punished because I have a solid connection and someone else doesnt.
@@ThreeGoddesses Your 2nd statement isnt correct, as it goes both ways actually.
Everytime you fight someone different, you will need to condition yourself to their latency.
Imagine both parties put into different arenas where the laws of physics change with every player, in this case timings on when to pivot, how long to standstill, etc
Its ironicly intimate to take the time and understand your opponent's lat, same as them as well.
The beauty of this game is that, it allows you to adapt said to said latency and have fun regardless of how high or low it is, you just have to put effort in it.
This also nicely segways into the issue of other competitive games being ruined by bad connection. Dks's pvp is genuinely one of the best examples of a happy accident and it does not suffer from that.
Although in the end, its your choice to put in the effort for said fun. I fully understand that you don't enjoy this game's pvp but please don't simply brush it off to just lagstab, lagstab, lagstab
If Dark Souls Remastered got an engine face lift it would be legendary. But keep all the classic feels of deliberate gameplay of dark souls 1. PVP's only issue is latency, and backstabs. Backstabs should have something similar to dark souls 3, where backstab animation plays, but if they move quickly they can escape, and with latency fixes it wouldnt be too broken unless you are able to punish them for mistakes. Things like animation priority and perfect blocks arent too bad of an issue and wouldnt need to be fixed unless they break the game while fixing other aspects of the game, even dark souls 3 has animation priority, backstab a winged knight in lothric castle, then when he gets back up parry his back and spam r1, to get another backstab. The parry animation will stop half-way through.
so you want ds1 pvp to go from the work of art that it is to the garbage r1 spam that is ds3 pvp? cool