Messages on the ground. How do they really work?

Yukon wrote:There have been a few times where I was co-oping and the host does the OSS motion. But nothing shows up on my end, even though I am sharing a connection with this person, a stable one at that, I cannot see the messages they lay down...

Similar experience here. I just participated in a fight club being streamed on twitch.tv, so I was connected to another player and could see things from their perspective. After winding up back in my world, I put another sign down, and could see my sign so there was no doubt we were still connected.

I put down a row of 5 messages, not one of them appeared for the other player. On top of that, they saw messages left by other players that I could not see, and I could also see messages left by other players that the host couldn't. In other words, no signs were the same for us.

Perhaps its possible some of mine would've shown up if the host used seek guidance... but I don't know. There's certainly something odd about how messages work.

Acidic_Cook wrote:Pluses give Humanity, however Negatives do not take.

Has this actually been confirmed. Has anyone here received humanity from
getting messages upvoted (not to be confused with humanity obtained by
killing stage enemies before the boss is killed)?

I once got a message upvoted and I'm pretty sure I did not receive a
humanity. I once read that you needed 3 upvotes to get a humanity, but
haven't seen confirmation or evidence for that either.

I have received Pluses before, and I have received humanity as such; was given a humanity for a sign I placed, that randomly came to me. It is usually unnoticed, believe it or not. I looked to see my counter rise after leaving for a few minutes, to check to see my orange sign: +1 for "Be Wary of Occult"

Negs make it harder for others to find the sign, apparently. I find signs with seek guidance that have more negs then pluses, or are empty of either. However, some have more pluses, or just pluses in general. Do not know if people see your guidance sign more, if have more pluses for it. However, I think I made discovery...

After every hour, you can upvote the same orange sign, i think. Figured this with Barric, which gives every orange sign a +1 (he is so kind). I upvoted a sign twice that I passed, more than once.

Thanks, that's good to know. I've been trying to leave messages and keep an eye on my humanity, but no luck on getting upvotes so far.

Also, I believe you can upvote the same message more than once if you get kicked offline, and find the same message when you reconnect. Not long ago something was weird with my connection or the PSN, and I was able to give the same message 3 votes in less than an hour.

Hey, Barric is loving, and full of sunlight! He gives any orange sign he says a spec of humanity for others to take. When they invade, his hammer comes; when he helps, his hammer serves.

Acidic-- was your "be wary of occult" msg on the little bridge in front of Chester? That +1 may have been from me.

I'm fairly certain your signs can appear for others even if you are logged out. I tested for a while by checking my messages as soon as I logged in and again just before I quit, and a number of times I got updings on messages while I was disconnected. So unless there was a big lag between someone +1ing and me actually seeing it, people were seeing my messages while I was logged out. Also, in coop I often don't see my own messages in the host's world, so just being logged in is also not a guarantee your own messages appear in other worlds. I think of them sort of like summon signs, in that they drift in and out and there may even be zone limits of some sort. Otherwise spots like the Anor Londo main walkway would be just a carpet of messages.

And yes, there are a couple of (inconsistent) ways to rate the same message over and over. When I am cooping, if I get disconnected from the host or sometimes BC'd out I can often rate the same messages in my world that I already +1'd before getting summoned. I've pushed some messages pretty high this way.

Sorry, mine was in New Londo

Perhaps we can play a game of Seek Guidance some time.