Gravelord Mechanics: Method to spawn Black Phantoms - UPDATE

My latest and by far greatest project is difficult to write in short. But I will try to be exact as possible as I can. There are few ways to successfully infect other worlds, but I will discuss about method I've applied during my Gravelord tour. The tour where I've infected all areas of Lordran (see videos on wiki).

1. You need a host Gravelord (for those who don’t know basics of gravelording please refer this video tutorial).
2. Victim (infected player) is human, boss in victim’s world must be defeated for single play with no incoming invasions (btw, this is the best option for mapping the black phantoms) or alive for coop play or single play with invasions.
3. And here is a key for successful infection. Victim MUST enter NG+ or higher, NG doesn’t work!!! Host plays NG or higher.
4. After you met first three requirements, you have to establish stable connection between host and victim. Victim drops red sign soapstone. Host summons and kills the victim or victim uses black separation crystal. When the victim is returning to his world, host drops an Eye of Death (EoD) immediately. Congratulation, you’ve spawned black phantoms in victim’s world.

This method is reliable (it worked 100% for me) and let you to explore infected world without time limit. But it has one side effect. Host should be a patient, use to wait and be able to defend incoming invaders. As we all know nothing in this world is 100% sure. They are many factors which might affect successful infection, such as soul level, player’s traffic, NG, etc... Soul level of the host and victim is important factor but not crucial (mine was 127, the most active one. To avoid high traffic increase your soul level above 125 or better play low soul level). Player’s traffic is vital, high traffic reduces probability to successfully infect and connect with specific victim. NG is very important, If your lobby is full of NG players your NG+ victim will be infected by host. If your lobby is filled with NG+ players forget about infection. If your lobby (victim's lobby) is filled with other NG+ players, NG+ victim in the lobby has less chance to be infected by host since other NG+ players compete with the victim for the same Gravelord (your host). I’ve tested other variations of infection with white sign soupstone, black separation crystal and all worked well in my hands. Method with WSS is especially useful for a coop play. I’ve also tested an effect of NG on infection, offline mode, internal black phantoms clock, dry fingers... All these features are welcome to know if you want to play without a host. For further information refer this video tutorial

Techniques for getting un-gravelorded: How do I get rid of black phantoms and perma-gravelordning?
1. If you lose connection with the Gravelord servant, an invisible timer is set to ten minutes. After ten minutes pass, a "disasters are gone..." message will appear automatically and the black phantoms will disappear. Resting at a bonfire, dying or quitting/reloading the game will reset the timer, allowing the black phantoms to last indefinitely. If you reset the timer before the ten minutes pass you will get a wrong impression being permanently gravelorded for a long period.
2. If you go online, find a buddy Gravelord servant and ask him to infect you on purpose. Invade in his world, kill him, after "disasters are gone..." message will appear, black phantoms will disappear.

How successfully infect a host as a white phantom or dark spirit?
Best way to get people infected with BPs is to join their game as a white phantom or duel with them as dark spirit. Only limit: host must be NG+. Before you leave the host you have to decently ask him if he is in NG+. And if he says yes then grrrrrr.... After return as white phantom or dark spirit back in your game you just drop an EoD. The results are seen in the video.

Regards,
Ribosome

SPECIAL NOTE: November the 2nd, 2012, Players can only see the black phantoms in NG+ and above. NG+ seems to be confirmed by this Miyazaki interview.

I spoken with baggergirl from gamefaq and she was able to confirm black phantoms in NG+6 on xbox. It would be really nice if someone from PC users could give some info on this topic.

Im suspicious of point 3. It makes sense but I cant see how you would do enough research on that to confirm it.
Also if it is true, I understand FROMs intent but it is stupid nonetheless.

Yeah I have never finished a full play through one any of my GL's.....

DoughGuy wrote:Im suspicious of point 3. It makes sense but I cant see how you would do enough research on that to confirm it.
Also if it is true, I understand FROMs intent but it is stupid nonetheless.

Here is a proof of point 3. Have you seen a video 7:40-11:30? It clearly shows that NG+ predominates NG in terms of infection. More, I was randomly infected many times, always in NG+ and never in NG and this was shown in videos. Of course, this method might be limited. If your lobby (victim's lobby) is filled with other NG+ players, NG+ victim in the lobby has less chance to be infected by the host since other NG+ players compete with the victim for the same Gravelord (your host).

This saturday at 18:00 UTC we will gather in Parish Sl 70 NG+ and test this method. Join us as a Gravelord.

I agree with you that FROM did something very useless in regard to NG and Gravelord covenant, and I believe FROM didn't intent to do it. Probably just bad mechanics.

I havent watched the vid yet, really slow net.
The reason they did it, imo, is so new players didnt get stuck in an area from people perma GLing it.

DoughGuy wrote:I havent watched the vid yet, really slow net.
The reason they did it, imo, is so new players didnt get stuck in an area from people perma GLing it.

Maybe, but perma gravelording is actually not permanent. Black phantoms die after 10 minutes if you don't rest at bonfire. So, for new players it shouldn't be a problem playing NG Gravelord run.

haha do you really think you would've survived for 10 minutes against BPs as a new player? Pretty sure most people would just die over and over trying to get past them.

DoughGuy wrote:haha do you really think you would've survived for 10 minutes against BPs as a new player? Pretty sure most people would just die over and over trying to get past them.

This is true. But If you wait for 10 minutes at sun altar for example and do nothing they will die and you will not be forced to pass them.

Interesting. I almost never go into NG+, and also have never seen gravelord BPs despite tons of disasters gone msgs, and even invading via the gravelord signs. Maybe NG+ is my problem.

I suspected this all along once I was convinced that NG+ has higher priority than NG. This is why most people never saw a BP on top of the fact, which is just as important, NOT ENOUGH GRAVELORDS.....

So we will do a test sl +70.

I am a bit afraid that since there are many NG+ players hosting in the Forest that some of our BPs will go there but I hope our relatively low sl will help infect each other.

One more thing.

It would be extremelly stupid if from made NG++ have a higher priority than NG+ for spawning BPs. I hope that the curse is spread x3 at every NG+ Level. Otherwise, I am going to hire a Japanese person to write a letter to FROM about this BS

DxV04 wrote:

I am a bit afraid that since there are many NG+ players hosting in the Forest that some of our BPs will go there but I hope our relatively low sl will help infect each other.

When I was doing Gravelord experiment in Forest I had big problems to connect with the host because of high player's traffic. Then I changed location and went in Parish. Here was ok. So, I suggest Parish is better option.

neat.. i never go into ng+ (still don't have killing gwyn trophy on the new ps3).
i never see black phantoms.
does the gravelord need to be on ng+ or?

+1

Rifter7 wrote:neat.. i never go into ng+ (still don't have killing gwyn trophy on the new ps3).
i never see black phantoms.
does the gravelord need to be on ng+ or?

+1

Gravelord is not important. Victim should be ng+ or higher.

Really liked. Gives me a lot of hope that one day I can make a full playthrough with every area gravelorded

As long as there are few to none gravelords your chances will be slim

So here's the thing ., The Oolacile Township on one of my Gravelords is currently permanently blessed with BPs , as long as I strictly follow the rules which are resting at a bonfire or dying , before 10 full minutes have passed. So far Ive warped and went everywhere , invaded and got invaded , and summoned and got summoned , without any of these events causing the BPs to dissapear.

I play on xbox , so I made a backup of the savefile on my laptop because Im hoping that if the BPs disappear by accident , I can always go back to the cursed state by loading up this particular savefile.

Now if I can confirm that this actually works , I will try to become perma-cursed in multiple area's simultaneously to make a backup of the file with all the BPs present for the ultimate gravelord experience.

A majority of the players that play this game are undead and do not bother to come back to life because of the fear of being invaded and dying in a dumb spot and losing all there souls because they died trying to get back to it. I myself have done a majority of the game dead to prevent myself from being invaded. I can tell you though that I have been invaded in NG as I have never completed the game but this was in the painted world a long time ago so I don't know if they have changed it since then.

interesting, as i already heard about the fact that bp will only appear in our infected world when you are in ng+. anyway it's nice to see someone from the forums confirming it. i read about it in the following article:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/02/dark-souls-miyazaki-talks-artorias-of-the-abyss

miyazaki mentions it after the "enemies trailer". unfortunately i'm not that into gl myself, but maybe i will do some testing on the pc version one day.

ZikoLogiKa NL wrote:So here's the thing ., The Oolacile Township on one of my Gravelords is currently permanently blessed with BPs , as long as I strictly follow the rules which are resting at a bonfire or dying , before 10 full minutes have passed. So far Ive warped and went everywhere , invaded and got invaded , and summoned and got summoned , without any of these events causing the BPs to dissapear.

I play on xbox , so I made a backup of the savefile on my laptop because Im hoping that if the BPs disappear by accident , I can always go back to the cursed state by loading up this particular savefile.

Now if I can confirm that this actually works , I will try to become perma-cursed in multiple area's simultaneously to make a backup of the file with all the BPs present for the ultimate gravelord experience.

Nice. When I did all that hard work on Gravelord machanics and did Gravelorded run to reveal all BPs locations I've infected all areas in the game with BPs. Even now, after 4 months I can play with very same character with BPs in multiple areas simultaneously infected without making a backup file (I can't do that since I play on PS3). I've also captured perma-cursed multiple areas on the video but I'm too lazy to edit it. I'm glad that people now can actually experience hard mode

I just updated OP with some new info about Gravelord mechanics.

Point 3 I would agree with based on I have hundreds and hundreds of hours in this game and the ONLY time I ever saw BPs was on a NG+ in anor londo. It was awesome!

thanks Ribo., Ive watched al of your gravelord clips a while back. You did an exccellent job exposing all the mechanics and BP locations man , much appreciated !

Wow so you still have the BPs in multiple area's ? That's good to know ! But what if I will be randomly connected to another gravelord in the future , in one of my perma cursed area's ? will my BP's in that particular area then vanish for sure when he dies ?

Yeah for everyone who is still in doubt , it's pretty much confirmed that your character has to be in NG+ or higher for a chance to be infected for real.

I've had a guy in NG+ wandering around for over 20 hours playtime in hopes of getting GL BPs, still nothing. If anyone has a recommendation for getting GL'd at sl100 I am all ears.

ZikoLogiKa NL wrote:
Wow so you still have the BPs in multiple area's ? That's good to know ! But what if I will be randomly connected to another gravelord in the future , in one of my perma cursed area's ? will my BP's in that particular area then vanish for sure when he dies ?
.

This question bothers me a lot. Last week I was infected by Gravelord friend. I asked him to disconnect. I disconnected too. Soon after he droped EoD and I've seen his GL sign again. I asked him to kill himself. Nothing happened, BPs stayed alive. But I remember also month ago when we were testing this issue, after Gravelord has died BPs also vanished. Difficult to say something very solid on that...