What would you like to see from online play in the sequel?

The discussion of online play in Dark Souls is a sticky subject. That said what would you like to see.

How would you make online play more interesting?

Would you change anything at all?

Be inventive. Think outside the box.

i'd like for covenants to play a bigger role and to ditch some useless ones (i'm looking at you princess's guard). i don't have too much time to elaborate right now since i'm getting invaded, i'll be back though...

More online play covenants with some funny twists. I'd personally love a covenant where you 'invade' but act as a summon and clear the level but the host gets no souls if you kill things.

only let red soap be taken by people without summons

Have an 'invasion' mechanic where you take control of an enemy in the level of the world you're invading

Serious_Much wrote:More online play covenants with some funny twists. I'd personally love a covenant where you 'invade' but act as a summon and clear the level but the host gets no souls if you kill things.

only let red soap be taken by people without summons

Have an 'invasion' mechanic where you take control of an enemy in the level of the world you're invading

Ive thinking that since i start invading. It would be awesome.

I want it to stay the same... The last thing I want is for it to be noob friendly and I get 1 shotted by someone whos never played before allowing him to say "wow you talk so much about how good you are but I 1 shotted you"... leave everything alone and continue to make people Work or at least Trade their *** off to get decent gear...

Agreed, one thing I don't want is a massive shake up of online mechanics, just a bit of ingenuity in the covenant play brought to the table.

Obviously though as we all know, the pve is the first, foremost and focus of souls not the online component. Long as my first play through is fun and satisfying and using different magics/play styles in subsequent playthroughs is fun too ill consider it worth the funds.

Serious_Much wrote:More online play covenants with some funny twists. I'd personally love a covenant where you 'invade' but act as a summon and clear the level but the host gets no souls if you kill things.

only let red soap be taken by people without summons

Have an 'invasion' mechanic where you take control of an enemy in the level of the world you're invading

we have that. The Dragon Covenant.

Carphil wrote:

Serious_Much wrote:only let red soap be taken by people without summons

we have that. The Dragon Covenant.

I heard the dragons don't get summoned a lot. I know I've only found two of them the whole time I've played this game, and I've been playing for a long time.

It's a good idea if they can make it work better, but that would ruin fight clubs and other tournaments, unless they make a better arena.

Also, an invitation system would be nice. I hate having to wait an hout just to hook up with someone specific.

What I really want is for them to remove . I think this alone would greatly improve the online play.

Carphil wrote:

Serious_Much wrote:More online play covenants with some funny twists. I'd personally love a covenant where you 'invade' but act as a summon and clear the level but the host gets no souls if you kill things.

only let red soap be taken by people without summons

Have an 'invasion' mechanic where you take control of an enemy in the level of the world you're invading

we have that. The Dragon Covenant.

I mean obviously just have a single duelling online item, we're talking about the next game here, so obviously the covs will be different (if they come back at all)

I also mean that we shouldn't have multiple duelling items as the one that is least exploitable wont get summoned, just as happens with dragons.

1) Random invader spawn locations
2) An emote for invaders only that would aggro enemies. In other words, I dont want to use an attunement slot...if that system is still in place.
3) The ability to leave your sign and not have to wait around.
4) idk...stuff.

Summoned players not go back to their worlds after area boss was defeated, so we can co-op a whole game with friends without stupid summoning issues.

Or atleast..

Easy co-op and duels with peoples from my PSN Friendlist.
Everything else is fine.

LK-8912 wrote:Summoned players not go back to their worlds after area boss was defeated, so we can co-op a whole game with friends without stupid summoning issues.

ugh, no way! then again i say that as a greedy sunbro, as in i only co-op for the easy souls/humanity. anywho, being able to co-op the entire game is almost possible now with only a few areas un-summonable.

if the disperse of summons after bosses was taken out and you could go the whole game with your friends with no interruption it would be fun but take away from the online inspiration to summon new people thus degrading the online scene. possibly just make it easier to get a hold of friends like a friendship stone so you can send out signal ( invite) to summon a friend and they can choose to decline if need be

i approve of this option better.

mr_no_face wrote:if the disperse of summons after bosses was taken out and you could go the whole game with your friends with no interruption it would be fun but take away from the online inspiration to summon new people thus degrading the online scene. possibly just make it easier to get a hold of friends like a friendship stone so you can send out signal ( invite) to summon a friend and they can choose to decline if need be

Sounds like a good idea, and for that you earn my seal of approval, congratulations!

I sort of wish they'd make a trading area for players. Kind of like a place you can summon people and trade, no combat allowed.

This may seem against the way of Dark Souls...

But remember, items still have to be dropped, and you can still be totally ripped off.

The randomness of trading in a high populated area haha.

A playercard that keeps track of your K/D ratio...jk

An in game rating system might be nice, like if someone consistantly ganks or cheats, you can vote him down, only, unlike indictments, this makes it LESS likely for him to get PVP.

Noob-of-Artorias wrote:A playercard that keeps track of your K/D ratio...jk

An in game rating system might be nice, like if someone consistantly ganks or cheats, you can vote him down, only, unlike indictments, this makes it LESS likely for him to get PVP.

That's a great idea, but it would get abused. That's why it wasn't put in Dark Souls.

In Demons' Souls people would give great co-op players bad ratings. I had that happen to me once.

I would like to see a small number of strong monsters throughout the game who could on occasion be controlled by another player. You would know which monsters this could happen to, but you would never know if there was a player there or not during the combat. Receiving player would get some souls bonus if successful, whilst invading player would need to 'pay up' this same amount of souls if he/she lost the duel.

I'm thinking... a moderately tall knight but empty on the inside of the armor suit. Or something.

Random idea.

mimic covanent, special online funtion is to spawn a treasure chest thats actually the invader (who is a mimic, just one that uses weapons) defeating the mimic invader nets the host souls and some sort of decent item (think gold coins or titanite chunks) but no humanity.

note it is possible for the invader to prematurely leave the hiding state by pressing the attack button, other wise they function like your usual mimic but with less damage on the surprise eating attack.that way the host has a chance to fight back if they get fooled by the ruse.

1. Fix the network issues. This is a no-brainer, and is an implementation issue rather than a game design one, so there's not much to object to. I've been playing for around 300 hours and my overall success rate when attempting to summon phantoms is probably around 30%. Success rate when invading someone is low too.

2. Darkmoon covenant (or its equivalent) should invade people with actual indictment, instead of sin from changing covenants or killing NPCs. Yes I know you can buy absolution but lots of people have reported that it doesn't quite work, that they have no indictment and still get invaded by Darkmoons after absolving their sins.

3. An online match-making system that makes it harder for low-level griefers with juiced up equipment invade the Burg. Maybe some sort of formula that calculates how "good" your gear is and accounts for that in addition to SL.

4. Let the invader get his Cracked Red Eye Orb back if the host disconnects or enters the boss fog. Since I talked to Frampt too soon, these precious orbs are hard to come by (mostly trading with other players), and I've gone through a dozen of these without getting an actual fight.

5. Improve the way rating up messages works. I've set down hundreds of messages and never once got a +1 (that I know of; I know that I check my OSS quite frequently). Maybe it's just that other people don't rate messages, in which case there should be some incentive to give out ratings, like having your own messages appear more frequently.

6. I haven't seen other people mention this, but I liked the bloodstain animations in Demon's Souls much better. They were easier to see.

7. Give summoned phantoms an option to indict the host if they send them away with the black crystal. There's a funny story here - another phantom and I helped a host get past the two Silver Knight archers in Anor Londo, and he banished us with the black crystal once we reached the bonfire room. So I put down my sign at the rotating staircase again and a few minutes later got summoned by the same host. Turns out that in a hilariously ironic twist he got invaded (and killed, obviously) just as he sent us away, before he lit the bonfire. I let the archers kill him the second time.

8. Have a warpable bonfire for EVERY online play covenant. Getting to Nito can be a pain. Also, it would be nice if following the "obvious" game path didn't lock you out of a major covenant (Frampt shows up, you talk to him, no Red Eye Orb for you).

9. Having a boss like the Old Monk in Demon's Souls seems like a great idea, although it's a luxury. I wouldn't mind too much if they didn't have it, but seems like From has already had this idea before, so why not again?

10. One idea I'm not sure about but have considered: a priority system where hosts who die a lot from invasions get invaded less in the future, while those who are better at killing invaders get invaded more. The upside is less grief for less skilled players and more pvp for those who are good at it; the downside is that it's easy for this to become unbalanced and the less skilled players won't get pvp when they become better. They can also match up the more skilled invaders with the more skilled hosts, and vice versa. That way, there would be more "fair" fights, although again this doesn't account for big improvements in skill as players become more experienced.

gmwdim wrote:2. Darkmoon covenant (or its equivalent) should invade people with actual indictment, instead of sin from changing covenants or killing NPCs. Yes I know you can buy absolution but lots of people have reported that it doesn't quite work, that they have no indictment and still get invaded by Darkmoons after absolving their sins.

Actually, the "Absolve Sins" does work, but not completely. It will absolve all sins except indictments. Getting invaded by Darkmoons without sin or indictments is the color switch glitch.

3. An online match-making system that makes it harder for low-level griefers with juiced up equipment invade the Burg. Maybe some sort of formula that calculates how "good" your gear is and accounts for that in addition to SL.

It's a good idea. However, it may be easier to just remove . Those started the problem in the first place.

9. Having a boss like the Old Monk in Demon's Souls seems like a great idea, although it's a luxury. I wouldn't mind too much if they didn't have it, but seems like From has already had this idea before, so why not again?

I think that was the best idea in Demon's Souls. Lots of people agree.

10. One idea I'm not sure about but have considered: a priority system where hosts who die a lot from invasions get invaded less in the future, while those who are better at killing invaders get invaded more. The upside is less grief for less skilled players and more pvp for those who are good at it; the downside is that it's easy for this to become unbalanced and the less skilled players won't get pvp when they become better. They can also match up the more skilled invaders with the more skilled hosts, and vice versa. That way, there would be more "fair" fights, although again this doesn't account for big improvements in skill as players become more experienced.

I think there's a simpler way to fix the problem. They should put in an invasion switch. If it's on, then the game behaves normally. If it's off, then you can't be invaded or invade. The switch will only work in NG. It will be stuck on in NG+ and higher. Although this idea also has problems.

This is not exactly online play, but online related.
The attunement system needs to be altered so casters can somehow refresh their spells after being invaded. Kill the invader and you have too few spells left to kill the boss, so you have to go back to the bonfire to refresh (or do a coop session), then perhaps being invaded again when you head back to the boss. This also applies to mage hosts who have to run back to the bonfire after every victory in pvp.
What if your spells are also replenished when you retrieve the bloodstain of a slain invader?

ublug wrote:This is not exactly online play, but online related.
The attunement system needs to be altered so casters can somehow refresh their spells after being invaded. Kill the invader and you have too few spells left to kill the boss, so you have to go back to the bonfire to refresh (or do a coop session), then perhaps being invaded again when you head back to the boss. This also applies to mage hosts who have to run back to the bonfire after every victory in pvp.
What if your spells are also replenished when you retrieve the bloodstain of a slain invader?

Good idea. An alternative would be to have a consumable item that restores spells, but make it rare to avoid people abusing it for unlimited casts.

Blood stains YES they looked way better in Demon's as well as the player phantoms phasing in and out of your game they were better in detail i loved it bring that **** back

the Attunement refresh idea should be a YES whether it be a blue estus flask or a different consumable OR they just regen over a period of time. The player could stand still and enter a stance to "regain concentration" and thus regenerating the spells. ( if you've ver played fat princess lol you know what i mean )