In this episode of Dark Souls II Dissected, we’re doing a deep dive into the multiplayer timer system. Unlike other Souls games, you only have a limited amount of time when you’re a guest in a host’s world, but the exact numbers involved have never been closely examined before.
The shorter duration of time allowed by the Small White Sign Soapstone is explored and considered as a feature that would’ve been nice to have in Elden Ring as well.
https://patreon.com/illusorywall
0:00 Introduction
0:46 Co-op Time Limits & Overview
4:28 Co-op Time Modifiers
7:07 Review of Enemy Values
14:20 Area Modifiers & Map Speculation
17:59 Boss Fights
19:02 PvP Time Limits
24:52 Inconsistent Timer Rate?
26:00 Closing Words
In the video I forgot to credit Meowmaritus for creating the area list seen in the video:
https://gist.github.com/Meowmaritus/8b921e13506a4eff387cfc66b86cd1b3
Doc with all enemy co-op timer subtraction values:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ufDr_7FhEOV_ckFDBBM1D8BqZtMZxl42EVybIQpv860/copy
Dark Souls 2 Design Works interview translated by Peter Barnard:
https://www.barnardtranslations.com/post/dark-souls-ii-design-works
OnlyAfro – Silver Knight Shenanigans:
In addition to participating in a bunch of multiplayer for this video, FenoTheFox also provided some footage from his perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/FenoTheFox
24 Comments
The Blue Sentinel timer question is interesting. Guess I can try looking into that now that I'm starting to have a bit of server networking functions reversed.
EDIT: I can confirm you that every possible method of obtaining reskin weapons are safe and cannot cause a softban to happen.
I played DS2 multiple times, and granted..i dont use co-op, but its the first time i heard about two different soapstones for different timers. I really dont know why they didnt implemented this in Elden Ring, this is perfect mechanics for Elden Ring.
Dark Souls 2 had so much great and unique mechanics, i really want this game to be remastered or something…
17:35 I like these interactions you've been having with Keith lately (I laughed).
Small soapstone has a larger summoning range..
I think the dragon eye gets more time because the invading phantom can heal, which would potentially allow duels to last much longer.
This channel is like the nerdier version of limit breakers and I love it. Illusionary wall must be the adopted son of Old Man
It is interesting to view the short timer, not as short-changing the host of summoned help, but rather as a courtesy to summoned players so they can "grind" faster. If the player wants to get their Humanity back quickly, they need only get summoned with the small soapstone and kill a bunch of tough enemies.
Recalling DS2 is so depressing given ER's commercial success
I really like the small soapstone, when playing recently I'd often leave one of them out while doing a level, and basically get a free refill of healing/humanity/spells halfway through. Smooth and Silky stone is cool too, and it is a better reward then Token of Fidelity or Sunlight Medal if you're not interested in respective factions for those.
Video content aside, this reminded me how varied and creative a lot of the enemy design in DS2 was. Yeah a lot of people say it's just "dudes in armour" but that armour is unironically super varied & uses loads of different body types that Elden Ring definitely owes a debt to.
Does this affect the npc summons, i imagine that's also a big factor of having them not carry you around? i remember some ending early but never sure if that's distance or time related from kills
did a lot of small soapstone testing since i ran through it with a friend a lot, we also figured out that if you open cheat engine you can alter the time limit to be near infinite, thus allowing you to co-op in all non-co-op areas of the game, interestingly i believe that the shading effect still happens despite the timer being increased
I think PVP timers are unambiguously a good idea, as someone who's been replaying DS3 and keep seeing invaders disappear into the Painted World DLC map and then randomly stab me in the back half an hour later. PVP invaders have a very big advantage that nobody ever really acknowledges: They know they're going into PVP. They can make and put on a PVP-focused build that just needs to kill one or maybe two enemies. The invaded players are built for PVE endurance, so their DPS output and big flashy abilities are going to be by necessity turned way down by comparison. This changes things as fundamental as what weapon archetype you're using, as big slow weapons have a big advantage in PVE and a HUGE disadvantage in PVP. This means invaders can frequently wipe out an victim player in a single solid attack without them getting any response when they perfectly control the circumstances. Putting some time pressure so they can't run off to the far distant corner of the map where they love to do their 100% sure kill ambush every time but actually have to respond to the circumstances of the invaded player would be a massive improvement.
(also DS3 gives Invaders way too fucking many flasks wtf)
is there any way to message you on discord in case someone wishes to help you test the blue sentinel thing?
I don't know why, but my first thought when watching the seconds list was 'you could use this as point buy for some kind of DS2 enemy-army wargame.'
Thank you B team
Really interesting! DS2 had a lot of neat ideas, it deserves more praise.
Would have definitely solved the whole issue ER had with afk farmers or just plain afk/hiding hosts that just like to fuck around and find out.
Cant tell how DS2 handel the blue timer ds3 they stayed until all invaders are gone
I think you could easily slap a PVP timer on the host in Elden Ring to stop AFK farming. Just make it so that the furled finger effect runs out after 15 minutes to make invading these farmers less likely, and make it so that not resting at a site of grace for an hour deactivates online play completely until going back to the main menu (unless you have co-op summons in your world)
Fromsoft didn't like you messing in the files during gameplay so they said fine a-hole enjoy your double speed timer.
Ah yes Dark Souls 2. A game.
Dragon-eye obviously has more time for Lore reasons :^) As Dragons were the symbol of time being stagnant
Did you know you can drop items in the PvP arenas and they go to the host, also the PvP arenas have no soul memory ranges so a 400 million soul memory player can interact with a player who just beat old dragon slayer