I am one of the people that thoroughly dislikes adhoc, always-on invasions. The method of play they enforce and the unique kinds of stressors they add are antithetical to how I personally want to spend my time. The whole invasion process is largely a one-sided enjoyment affair, based around fuelling griefing.
I learned to just jump off a huge balcony in the nexus as soon as I killed a boss in Demon’s Souls just to make sure I was never in human form after being invaded on a runback to try and reach my bloodstain and being attacked by an invader with the scraping spear. Great, now I have no souls, and also no gear and no way to fix it. That isn’t fun, that is just some grifter getting their kicks out of ruining someone else’s day. No thank you.
“But it’s better now, there hasn’t been a scraping spear since Demon’s Souls anyway” you may claim. I do not care. PVP builds are different to PVE builds. I’m a slow player, and while others are on their second, third, or higher run-throughs of a game and know all the details and where to run early and sequence break to find The Cool Shit I’m still wandering around and exploring and learning. In comes an invader with a focused PVP-only build that kills you instantly and you never had a chance to begin with. Again, this is not fun. This is only fuelling the enjoyment of the grifter. I want no part of this.
Making invasion opt-in solves this problem. If you enjoy the invasion part of the game, if you think it adds a meaningful challenge and sense of tension to your game – go for it! Leave me out of it. I want to be able to put my controller down while I sit on a cliff face looking over a ravine while I go and deal with something I have cooking on the stove, or answer a phone call, or go to the bathroom, or whatever it is I may want/need to do; and I do not want to return to my game finding I have been assassinated by an invader. I love the tension of losing souls/runes on a runback, but I want my mistakes and failings to be my own.
