Dark Souls II: The Thread, AND the Game!

[Surrealistik]

Player skill level and practicing skills specific to PvP. You've already admitted ladders would be a good idea. Without ladders being the case, this is an issue you've said is a problem. A PvP would know to circle while blocking and then BS, or to swing for shave damage to hopefully hit and negate the BS in that case, which could allow taking advantage of lag or mildly mitigate it.

I said I _wouldn't mind_ skill ladders; I never said skill mismatches were a problem. In fact I explicitly said that I had reservations about the need or necessity for skill based match ups given the nature of Dark Souls and co-op.

Again, the unpredictable impact and extent of lag as well as it favouring co-op generally out it as a reason for being against PvP, particularly when lag is said to be significantly diminished by the new networking.

You're free tell tell everyone how all players behave exactly like PvE enemies. You're free to explain to all of them how they won't learn their skills to complete PvE if they don't PvP. You're free to explain to people that all of the time wasted fighting is worth the skills for wasting more time fighting in PvP.

Even if you are saying it's entirely fair, you've already admitted in this post they can learn the PvE relevant skills playing PvE.

Looks like you completely missed the point. As I've said, repeatedly now, PvP skills are useful for PvE, not essential. There is takeaway that _benefits_ your PvE game, but is not critical to succeed in PvE.