The only times I’ve had fun in pvp games/modes was when I was playing with a group of people I knew.

Thinking about it you’re sort of right, in that I enjoy playing stuff like Smash Bros and Mario Kart with my friends, but even then I have no interest in competing, I just find ways to annoy everyone else. I might win as a side effect of being annoying, but I’m just asking likely to be hoisted by my own petard, and I consider both good results.

Not really, I always preferred stuff that involved a group. The closest I get is board and card games, but they have an element of randomness that takes away the individual competition and makes it more of a social activity.

I have a strong preference for co-operative games, so I don’t really understand the attraction of non-team based PvP games like battle royales, extraction shooters, or just straight death matches like in quake or CoD. Like why would you want to be cold and alone with everyone out to get you when you could have friends.

I found the timing really difficult too, so I found a mod that slightly increases the dodge/parry window (something like 0.2s to 0.3s for parries) and suddenly I could reliable dodge and parry most attacks. Still requires precise timing, but now it’s a precise timing I can actually hit.

Avowed and Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon are the most Skyrim-like games I’ve seen recently, but I can’t speak for their quality. Dragon’s Dogma would be an ideal fit but it’s 3rd person.

Red Steel was a release title, meant to showcase the Wii as a serious console for adults as well as a family friendly console for kids, but I’m pretty sure it, MadWorld, and No More Heroes were the only remotely gorey games for it.

Red Steel or MadWorld?