Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistik View Post
Not nearly enough of an issue to throw out the idea of obligatory PvP, or be a legitimate argument against it.
You want a legitimate issue? Not everyone enjoys PVP, regardless of any balancing issues.

A lot of people simply don't like it, don't find it fun, or even find it outright distressing.
Obligatory PVP, in that sense, is only even a neutral asset to people for whom this isn't true. It only becomes a positive feature when you get to the group of people who actively enjoy PVP.

This seems to me to be both a legitimate issue and hard to argue with. People who hate PVP...are going to hate having to PVP.

You've also got the issue wherein, once playing the game, you aren't in charge of whether you have to PVP or not. It is the PVP crowd who dictate whether you have to deal with PVP or not. So PVP isn't something you have the option to do, rather it is something hostile that is done to you.

I find the entire setup of PVP in Dark Souls to be strange, counter-intuitive and very much out of the ordinary. But it's quite clear as well that this is working as intended. Which is why I say that griefing is an element of the game by design.