Dark Souls' online play is similar to that of its spiritual predecessor, Demon's Souls, in many ways. From Software have also refined and added many new features. While the game may be played and completed offline, these unique features to online play make the gaming experience more than ever before.
Bloodstains
When a player interacts with bloodstains, they may see the death of the player who left the stain. This is an important tool to avoiding traps found ahead.
Messages
Players are able to write messages on the ground, so that other players may read them in their own worlds. Many of these messages will warn you of dangers to come. But beware!! Messages may also be left to fool players into a false sense of security. Be aware you need to purchase a Orange Guidance Soapstone before you can write and rate messages.
Ghostlike Apparitions
Ghostlike images of other players that are in the same area as you. If they appear to be raising their shield as if in enemy combat, you may want to have your shield at the ready!
Summon Signs
- White Summon Sign (White Sign Soapstone): Will summon that player into your world as a friendly white phantom to assist you in that area and will automatically depart after the area boss has been defeated, the host dies, or the friendly phantom dies.
- Orange Summon Sign (White Sign Soapstone, Warrior of Sunlight Covenant): Will summon that player into your world as a friendly orange phantom to assist you in that area and will automatically depart after the area boss has been defeated, the host dies, or the friendly phantom dies. If the boss is defeated successfully, all living party members in the host's world will receive a Sunlight Medal only if an orange phantom is still alive.
- Red Summon Sign (Red Sign Soapstone): Will summon that player into your world as a hostile red phantom to invade you and kill you. Successfully killing the red phantom will grant the host a humanity in addition to souls that is reflective of how many souls the red phantom had. You cannot use a Red summon sign if you have friendly phantoms assisting you in your world.
- Dragon Eye Summon Sign (Dragon Eye, Path of the Dragon Covenant): Will summon that player into your world as a hostile phantom to invade you and kill you. Successfully killing the phantom will award the winner with a Dragon Scale, if the host loses, he only loses his human form. You cannot use a Dragon Eye Summon Sign if you have friendly phantoms assisting you in your world.
- Gravelord Summon Sign (Eye of Death, Gravelord Servant Covenant): If you see a messaged pop up stating "Disasters are now present in your world and will not leave until the Gravelord is defeated.", somebody has used an Eye of Death and is currently cursing your world making the enemies more difficult. To break the curse, you must locate the Gravelord's Summon Sign and use it to invade the Gravelord's world and kill him. The curse may also be broken if the Gravelord cursing your world dies from something else or quits the game.
Player versus Player
Players may invade the worlds of other players. Upon doing so, they become a black phantom. This black phantom's goal is to either kill the player whose world they invaded, or sometimes retrieve a certain item from them.
Players may invade using items obtained via covenant affiliation. Non-affiliated players can invade using consumable Cracked Red Eye Orbs. Namco Bandai explains the use of Red Eye Orbs as follows:
"Both the host (the person being invaded) and the client (the person invading) need to be human.
The client’s level must be within the lower 10% of the host’s level. Formula: LH ≥ (LC x 0.9), where LC is the level of the client and LH is the level of the host. For example, if the level of host is 20, then their world will only be invaded by players who are levels 18, 19 or 20 and all other players will not be able to invade the world of this host.
Not too sure about the 10% formula, i think it might be 10+10%. I'm SL10 and i keep fighting people with black knight great axes. So i think the "within 10 soul levels" is more accurate. I'm invading using Red Eye Orb - Darkwraith Covenant.
According to the official guide, the level difference between all the players must be within 10 Soul Levels.
At least one area boss (Taurus Demon OR Capra Demon, Bell Gargoyles, Moonlight Butterfly, etc…) in the host’s world must still be alive. A client can still invade even if they have already defeated their own area bosses.
After successfully invading, the client will return back to their world if the host enters the white light to the area boss (dark phantoms cannot enter boss areas), the host gets killed (by enemies or by the invading player) or the client gets killed."
Cooperative Play (Summoning)
Players may summon other players into their world as phantoms to help them in their journey. These summoned phantoms may aid the player in combat, lighting beacon fires or even giving them recovery items.
According to the official guide, the soul level limit between two players is 10 soul levels. There is no formula at all.
Namco Bandai issued the following statement regarding the conditions for summoning helpful players using the White Sign Soapstone:
"The host (person who's game world will be used) must be human. The client (person joining the game) can either be human or undead.
The client’s level must fall within 10% (above or below) of the host’s level. Generally, this example formula should give you a good idea on whether you will be able to join: (LC x 1.1) ≥ LH ≥ (LC x 0.9), where is LC the level of the client and LH is the level of the host. For example, if the level of the host is 20, then they will only be able to summon players who are levels 18 to 22.
At least one area boss (Taurus Demon OR Capra Demon, Bell Gargoyles, Moonlight Butterfly, etc…) in the host’s world must still be alive. A client can still be summoned even if they have already defeated their own area bosses.
The host must not have placed down a summoning sign. Summoning signs from other players will not appear in a host’s world if the host also has placed a summoning sign down. This is to prevent a network conflict of the host joining someone else's game world while the clients are trying to join the host's game world.
After successfully summoning, the client will return to their world if the area boss is defeated, the client is killed or the host is killed.
Also, please note that there are several different servers/lobbies that are being used for Dark Souls, so you may not be able to summon a specific friend into your game even if you adhere to the steps above. We can only recommend that you follow the steps above for the best chance at being able to join a specific friends' game."
- Both the official guide and Namco are incorrect. I have summoned and been summoned by players 11 levels above me (level 62 and level 73).
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- Perhaps the summoning is similar to Demon's Souls: 10% +10 levels. For example: You're SL62, you could summon anyone +- 16 levels. (Not Confirmed but this is how Demon's Souls worked).
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- Hint: If you want to play with a friend both should be in one of the 3 Cooperative Covenants (Princess's Guard, Way of White, Warrior of Sunlight). Then you can place your Summon Sign with your (White Sign Soapstone). If your friend doesn't see the sign, you just have to place it again. After a few times it will eventually show up in your friends world. It seems that the server is not important but the sign will only show up in a couple of worlds. So you have to place it some more times until it shows up in the designated world. To note is, that the sign will almost instantly appear in the other world you don't have to wait long until it becomes visible to other players. This was tested a couple of times and it never took longer than 5 minutes to find each other.
Troubles Summoning
If you run into "Summoning Failed" a lot, there could be many reasons. Some things to keep in mind when trying to summon:
- If you attempt to summon a player, don't try again if their soul sign shows up again - wait until you receive the "summoning failed" message before retrying.
- Sometimes summoning the same player will fail 2 or 3 times and then succeed. I've seen this when playing with a friend.
- If summoning one player with another fails, the other way may work. After that, summoning the first way may work. I've seen this with a friend; after about 5-6 failed attempts, we tried the other way successfully, and then it worked flawlessly after that.
- Once summoning between my friend and myself worked successfully, it continued working flawlessly and quickly.
- Summoning between two people in the same room with xbox360 systems on the same network, we found that placing the summon sign either worked quickly (within 5 seconds) or didn't appear to work for a long time. Putting down the sign once every 5 seconds, it appeared almost immediately (1-2 seconds) after the successful placement. This implies the servers place summon signs in a few worlds and leave them there for a while.
Gravelords
Players in the Gravelord covenant may lay down a curse that increases the difficulty of 3 other players' worlds. But beware!! The cursed players will have the opportunity to invade the caster, and reset the difficulty upon slaying them. Multiple benefits can be gained by both parties, if they emerge victorious.
Drift Items
Drift Items are enemies spawned from dropped equipment. Dropped equipment has a chance to become a vagrant and appear other peoples' worlds. The longer items are on the ground, the more powerful the Drift Item. The more powerful the Drift Item, the higher chance it will drop better items than what spawned it.
Bonfire Phantoms
Near bonfires (and only near them), the phantoms of other players are more distinct and visible than elsewhere in the game. Seeing other people resting at the same bonfire helps players realize that these people are probably facing the same challenges.
Bonfire Strengthen (Kindling)
"If someone strengthens a bonfire, this will be transmitted to people "nearby" (in network terms) who are using the same bonfire, giving them an extra Estus Flask. Strengthening a bonfire costs valuable Humanity, but you can use it to help out strangers and gain a sense of solidarity with your fellow strugglers."
Kindling a bonfire will also upgrade its capability to give you Estus flasks. For example, kindling it once will give you 10 flasks instead of 5. Later on, you can use the item Rite of Kindling to upgrade it even further, five flasks per upgrade (to a maximum of 20 flasks). Kindling a bonfire carries over to New Game+.
Covenants
When the player explores the world and plays the game, there will be certain opportunities which allow the player to make an oath to a person or on a specific subject, this is called a Covenant. When an oath is made, it determines the players position on that topic, and will impact the interaction with other players online. This could mean that taking an oath for something could make you allies with another player, or deadly enemies. The Oath system is not an all encompasing fixed alliance like a MMO guild; instead it should be thought of as a system which serves as a guide for active roleplaying.
Known covenants are: Way of White, Princess's Guard, Forest Hunter, Gravelord Servant, Chaos Servant, Path of the Dragon, Warrior of Sunlight, Blades of the Darkmoon, and Darkwraiths.
See the Covenants page for more information.
Miracle Resonance
"Some miracles have a "Resonance" property. If multiple players nearby in the network use these miracles, the effect for everyone is amplified."
Way of the White (Covenant)
This covenant is for helping out other players online. Players who are in this covenant will automatically be drawn closer to each other on the network. This makes the abovementioned Miracle Resonance easier to perform, as well as helps block people from antagonistic covenants from coming closer on the network.
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