Suppose From offered a communty vote to remove backstabs...

Emergence wrote:I should clarify. Poise is not a problem, but one could argue that the balance to poise is a backstab. With a limited hitbox, one could simply swing large weapons wildly without fear of leaving one's back exposed. That could easily tilt the tenuous balance in favor of the greatswords which is already a grumbled about weapon class. If you decrease the ability of poise to resist certain weapons, I think you would see a decrease in the Giant's/Greatsword combo.

That's true, and then the other side of that is reducing poise slightly brings in higher use of fast weapons that can still stunlock...

I think this whole debate we have just shows how much of a nightmare the devs have trying to balance a game for people as demanding as our community seems to be :|

glad they seem to want work despite all this. Umbasa and Praise the Sun

That's kind of my broader point. I don't have the vanity to profess an exact answer, I argue that you could really play devil's advocate on literally every game mechanic. Heck even the 120 cap is not beyond scrutiny. I think a true and proper poll question would be "Regardless of win/lose, after a pvp session, do you feel the outcomes are controllable or arbitrary?"

I will let you all guess what I voted....

Emergence wrote:That's kind of my broader point. I don't have the vanity to profess an exact answer, I argue that you could really play devil's advocate on literally every game mechanic. Heck even the 120 cap is not beyond scrutiny. I think a true and proper poll question would be "Regardless of win/lose, after a pvp session, do you feel the outcomes are controllable or arbitrary?"

They are certainly controllable. I love the game, and I honestly wouldn't want to change much of anything. That said, my second build was a heavy armor + elemental rapier + hornets ring + DWGR. Maybe it was the fact that I was playing against noobs, maybe it's poise, or backstabs, or a combo of all of the above, but I won almost every match, and I backstabbed the hell out of my opponents. My builds are more "sophisticated" now, but my win rate is actually significantly lower. The question for me is: is there a balance between builds in terms of gameplay? I would submit that the answer is no. If you want to win, heavy armor plus high crit weapon wins the day. Run through your opponents attacks and backstab. It's a bit of an art, but it only takes a few days to master. Once you've got it down, it's a piece of cake, although it's also boring as hell.

I would submit that poise was implemented imperfectly, to say the least. You shouldn't be able to automatically stunlock every time you swing a claymore, but you also shouldn't be able to run through heavy attacks to get a crit. The parry scene is getting heavy enough that only a fool would mash R1 with a greatsword, regardless of backstabs. Also, chipping greatsword or BKGA R1 mashers isn't particularly difficult if you're using DWGR. I do it all the time with a moonlight horn. I often lose for some other reason, but I'm never worried about the R1 greatsword spamming.

Lol sad how many people think BS should stay when you can easily 1-2 shot someone with something that is ridiculously easy to do. WoW takes more skill then DS and that's saying a lot...

strangejoy wrote:It's a good game mechanic, IMO, so it should stay. But where are you getting this "realism" stuff? In real life, there isn't anything particularly awesome about hitting someone in the back unless you surprise them. Surprise allows you to target a vital organ. Without surprise, hitting someone in the back is no better than hitting them in the chest or the stomach. Thus, in heated combat, "backstabs" make absolutely no sense, which is precisely why no armed fighting style in the world has ever advocating circling round and round your opponent to tag their back. Backstabs in this game are insanely unrealistic. That doesn't mean they should go away (we don't play games to emulate real life), but let's not talk about realism.

Thanks for your opinion.

Maybe backstabbing isn't really relevant to the realism concept, but, as you said, a "surprise" is what is most realistic. Sneaking up and backstabbing is more realistic, other than rolling around the opponent, who is completely aware of you, and backstabbing; that is unrealistic.

I completely agree with you.

I voted to keep them. Yes they are abused in pvp and personally I think the hornet ring could be removed so no more one shot BS kills if you have a respectable amount of health and a smaller window would be fine to. But when invading jumpers the BS can be your best friend so I'd say it should stay

- remove BS for large and extra large weps
- smaller hitbox
- Hornet ring : Makes the hitbox larger or boosts only the daggers BS.


Problem solved.

Midgar wrote:Lol sad how many people think BS should stay when you can easily 1-2 shot someone with something that is ridiculously easy to do. WoW takes more skill then DS and that's saying a lot...

Bro 90% of the dks community plays offline and bs may help them alot on higher ngs. The pvp community makes up about 10% so nothing will be changed according to our opinion, Although i think the game is just fine with them included. And from wouldnt include anything they thought was cheap. Why does everyone always complain about thing they cant handle :?:

Midgar wrote:Lol sad how many people think BS should stay when you can easily 1-2 shot someone with something that is ridiculously easy to do. WoW takes more skill then DS and that's saying a lot...

Somebody is forgetting this is a pve game with some limited online pvp elements. I'm starting to doubt how many people actually played Demon's Souls back in the day, there were no extremist complaints about the bs.

WarriorOfSunlight wrote:

Midgar wrote:Lol sad how many people think BS should stay when you can easily 1-2 shot someone with something that is ridiculously easy to do. WoW takes more skill then DS and that's saying a lot...

Somebody is forgetting this is a pve game with some limited online pvp elements. I'm starting to doubt how many people actually played Demon's Souls back in the day, there were no extremist complaints about the bs.

I completely agree
Ah back in the demon souls days

Artorias wrote:

WarriorOfSunlight wrote:

Midgar wrote:Lol sad how many people think BS should stay when you can easily 1-2 shot someone with something that is ridiculously easy to do. WoW takes more skill then DS and that's saying a lot...

Somebody is forgetting this is a pve game with some limited online pvp elements. I'm starting to doubt how many people actually played Demon's Souls back in the day, there were no extremist complaints about the bs.

I completely agree
Ah back in the demon souls days

Good to see some sanity in these parts, people seem to forget there's more than pvp to do post completion of the story.
Good to see a fellow DeS vet! Umbasa.

I think there are some ways to fix the mechanics without removing it.

1) Have backstabs be interruptible by another attacker or effect, or

2) Have backstabs only work if target currently has 50% or less stamina or something, otherwise why would they just stand there like an idiot while they wind up on you, or

3) Nerf poise. Often a lame backstab is just the symptom of a larger problem with poise where someone wearing Giants and the wolf ring can ignore 2-3 sword swings while they just sprint around and pivot BS you. There are people whose entire PvP skillset seems to consist of nothing but this. They don't even put their shield up when they run through your attacks because that might actually slow them down with a deflection.

If none of those are possible, then remove them because they're broken. I'll occasionally see weird effects where a spell or weapon seems to miss you but you still take damage, but nothing anywhere close to the level of constant, insane glitches I see with BSs. Last night I had one in anotherwise totally lag free fight where not only was I behind the guy who backstabbed me, but even the BS animation had me behind him. He was literally stabbing and kicking air while facing a different direction, while I fell down and died 5 feet behind him going the other way. The only way it made any sense was if there was a good 3 second lag in the fight, but only for backstabs.

2) Have backstabs only work if target currently has 50% or less stamina or something, otherwise why would they just stand there like an idiot while they wind up on you, or

Would make the most sense to me, what decent warrior would let their opponent casually stroll behind them unless they were relatively exhausted and unable to follow their movements effectively.
An alternative could be using the PvE mechanic where certain enemies have the ability constrict you into a damaging grapple, which can be escaped by mashing the shoulder buttons. There's been a few enjoyable games that have had similar mechanics such as: Dead Space 2 online. Mashing buttons for dear life is more fun when it fails than simply having a player walk up, freeze you and stick a knife in your back without any way to counter it.

HavocDrive2600 wrote:

2) Have backstabs only work if target currently has 50% or less stamina or something, otherwise why would they just stand there like an idiot while they wind up on you, or

Would make the most sense to me, what decent warrior would let their opponent casually stroll behind them unless they were relatively exhausted and unable to follow their movements effectively.
An alternative could be using the PvE mechanic where certain enemies have the ability constrict you into a damaging grapple, which can be escaped by mashing the shoulder buttons. There's been a few enjoyable games that have had similar mechanics such as: Dead Space 2 online. Mashing buttons for dear life is more fun when it fails than simply having a player walk up, freeze you and stick a knife in your back without any way to counter it.

That might work in pve but in pvp everyone will just mash the buttins making bs almost useless

I voted yes. But, a smaller hitbox would be great. I love BS, even for dueling. If I know someone may BS me, then the fight is all the more adrenaline pumping.

BUT - BS spamming or fishing is crap. I define spamming as you are constantly going for BS. Waiting for an attack and BS them. Not doing much other attacks, just baiting and responding. Fishing is similar, but mainly strafing until a pivot BS can be done. For either techniques, the fight becomes very boring and predictable.

No, but they could nerf it heavily without me caring much. Maybe scale down the damage based on how heavy your armor is. I don't know.

EDIT: Scale down the damage you do based on how heavy your armor is.

the dex builds need to be able to deal crits there are to many other ways to die in the same amount of time, but an adjustment of damage dealt wouldn't be awful

WarriorOfSunlight wrote:

Midgar wrote:Lol sad how many people think BS should stay when you can easily 1-2 shot someone with something that is ridiculously easy to do. WoW takes more skill then DS and that's saying a lot...

Somebody is forgetting this is a pve game with some limited online pvp elements. I'm starting to doubt how many people actually played Demon's Souls back in the day, there were no extremist complaints about the bs.

As far as I remember there was no hornet's ring in Demons and you couldn't get one shotted by a backstab, that's where the difference lies. Not to mention there were far more things to complain about in Demon's, people always whined when I used the Stormruler, others complained about infinite grass which is pretty much limitless health, others about that weapon that degraded your weapons/armor into being useless.

But really it's pointless to argue, nothing will be changed in the end and there are other games to play that have far better PvP or PvE.

At this point I just run away from anyone fishing for BS, twop, use the mobs, knock them off a cliff, oh well if they complain. I just find it pretty ridiculous that someone complains to me about using tactics like that when they are trying to one shot me doing something that takes virtually no skill.

Edit: But yes you are right, this game is geared far more towards PvE, that much is definitely true, that was actually the reason I first started playing. Just the sheer difficulty on your first playthrough.

I don't think it is purely backstabs most people have a problem with. It's the extremely frustrating lag-stab. I have very rarely ever been backstabed by someone who is actually behind me (on my screen). All of a sudden it's "warp" backstab "wtf". Even through scenery and around corners.

I do not know if FROM could do it, but linking the ability to perform a backstab to the Poise bar. So if you take a hit you can not perform a backstab.

Probably the best option.

how about weapon specifics:
clubs: are for smashing
great swords: for hacking and slashing
axes: well for axing
small knives: riposte and backstabs.
spears ...etc.
a well executed bs is awesome (even if its on me), if im holding a huge axe and someone with a tiny dagger rolls past my attack spins and stabs me in the back, i think its great. although ive only encountered this a few times compared to hundreds of times if had the great scythe shoved thru my body..my vote keep them but make bs specific weapons(daggers) as well as add the animation of the lower burg assasins. jumping on someones shoulders and shoving your knife in there face!!!! best anime in the game.

I know the squeaky wheel gets the grease guys, but the car that whines 24/7 get sold to the junk yard and crushed.

lol

Actually my main beef with backstabs are the people who can only use backstab to win. It's just annoying when you meet 20000 poise stabbers.