How Elden Ring's Multiplayer System Backfired

This multiplayer system would have been the perfect opportunity to bring back the old style of blues (invading invaders' home worlds). Solves the solo invasion and numbers issue at the same time.

Playing coop in the open world is also a chore because: Areas are locked which basically limits exploration (which is extremely important in this game). Same with no horses. I dont wanna summon someone, find a cave, desummon them, get the bonfire and then continue with the cave/open world with a summon. Also technical problems make summoning shittier like: Long loading/connection times Network errors

"You shouldnt have to turn on the Hunter mechanic, it should be automatic" Compared to the rest of the series which included blues, requiring a ring slot or covenant "slot" in order to have that mechanic, and the fact that in ER it doesnt expire until you manually turn it off, this is far better. If it were automatic, and there were people who wanted to solo invaders as they went through the game (like I and many others do), that would be awful because it would ruin a preference entirely, whereas the option to turn it off is always there when you want it.

It was so much fun being invaded during the first week of elden ring when no one was twinking. I had taunters tongue activated almost all the time for the first week. On the second week i noticed how much stronger the invaders were and realized they had made twink characters to fuck people over. Thats not what invasions are about at all imo

Not only this, they reduced the max player count, from 6 to 4, & there's no level specific invasion like forest pvp, bell bros, pontiff arena, & nightmare of mensis/frontier, kinda bummer really. It makes both invasion or getting invaded un-fun, there's no chaotic 2 vs 4, or 3 vs 3 invasion, which is my favourite part in souls pvp.

the constant invasions weren't too bad for my password squad at the start, but it's real bad now. Invaders have adapted to password ganks, so every invader is likely going to be an unoriginal meta build with bloodhound step because that's the only way to stand a chance against password matched overlevelled summons. This coming from someone who both invades and co-ops.

Invading is also miserable, frankly, you have to kit yourself knowing you're either going to sneak in and get a kill that will make someone legit upset or you're gonna roll up on 3 golds and 2 red phantoms that are all just part of the same group because there is nothing stopping duelests from being on the host side. It becomes a game of kiteing and cunning that leaves the only invaders left being either new players or an absolute monster who will stomp or whittle down all opponents. Not to mention afk host farmers.

I played the whole game together with a friend, I honestly didn't care about about the negatives like boss health, no horse or invasions. We have just seen it as a punishment for playing together. What we really hated were the random fog walls, where you just go a few steps further and have to summon again or resummon after a random miniboss. If it is a password set game, why not just let me continue playing?

Yeah the multiplayer in this game is a HUGE step back from previous titles: 1) Only 4 max players in world, instead of 6 2) Constant invasions when you have summons 3) As a solo player, have to choose between no invaders (default) or up to 3 invaders at once (taunter's tongue). 4) Multiplayer means you have to walk everywhere. 5) Weapons and spells are really poorly balanced, even worse than other souls game launches. 100% guard boost greatshields? Bleed now stuns through i-frames and builds in two hits? WTF. 6) A lot of the awesome multiplayer ideas from past games were dropped - DS2 small sign, DS3 mound makers, or DS1 gravelording.

On the invaders end its like this 10 invasions i did last night: 6 in a row where they were walking into the boss 3 that were the same 3 dudes gank squading (which was actually fun tbh) 1 where I spawned in the back, outside of Castle Sol, took me like 4 minutes to get to the host, he walked into the boss

As someone who's been an avid invader since Ds1, I've always tried to avoid using meta weapons because the game allowed skilled players to succeed in any field if enough effort was put in to learn the moveset. That's kinda tough to do when almost every time I'm in a hosts world, crouched in a bush with conceiling veil watching 3 guys use RoB, Moonveil, and the stars mini gun destroy other invaders in seconds. I love duels but nothing gets me more excited than pitting my skill and luck with the host caught off guard, not some dudes who emptied the whole map with insta kill setups forcing me to use weapons that are cheap and easy.

I really miss invading a world and trying to take down a gank squad with a whole army of reds coming in and backing me up. I feel like the timer is just long enough to make it feel annoying to the hosts because the invasions feel constant one after the other but very unsatisfying to the invader because there’s barely ever any chances to get into a 2v2 or 3v4 like back in DS3

I wanted to play solo, but still get invaded, so when I got the taunters tongue I was excited. But it turns out the tongue basically removes that cooldown, so I would just get invaders right after the last as well. So I couldnt play through the game and also enjoy the occasional invader, and I bet a lot of other people felt the same way. So on the off chance that you invade a solo host, they will never be moving through the area, they are there to duel. It really sucks

The other big thing I really miss is targeted PvP areas, e.g. the forest in DS1 or rat king and bell tower in DS2. Setting up the rat king areas to be your own little horror funhouse was so much fun.

I wanted to try out PVP, so I invaded a handful of worlds. Every single time it was a 3v1 where the players ganked me while I bowed to them. I figured it was because they were just trying to enjoy coop and were tired of invasions, so I tried using the Taunter's Tongue to let players come to me. I then got barraged by a wave of exploiters, trolls, and bad-faith tactics, because the people invading are all being forced to adapt to being outmatched. If this is the average online experience for everyone, then it's safe to say Fromsoft has seriously dropped the ball on this one.

I feel like the answer to this problem is pretty simple, too; add in solo invasions to zones that have an active boss and don't allow horseback (i.e. legacy dungeons, caves, catacombs). It negates the issue of getting kicked off horseback when invaded, adds some more tension and danger to these areas for solo play, and takes some of the weight of invaders off the backs of co-op players. And as an added bonus, it'll allow more areas to have lasting invasion potential once people get tired of exploring every area with their friends.

I tried doing a playthrough with Taunter's tongue and the hunter ring active and I would get 2 invaders straight away almost instantly. Which would've been fine if it wasn't all basically the same invader (Rivers of Blood users).

I really REALLY miss covenants. They gave these games so much depth and excitement. From intriguing systems and ideas like Blue Sentinels or Mound Makers to area covenants that give soul and life to areas and create PvP hotspots (Crucifixion Woods and Irirthyll leading up to Anor Londo were the shit). And you never knew what you were getting by progressing these covenants. Sometimes it was some shitty ring (DS3´s Wolf Ring lmao) other times it was and amazing weapon or spell (Darkmoon Blade for example). You felt accomplishment to get to that point and it gave you an incentive to even play PvP. I dont fucking care about my 99th Rune Arc. There are like hundres of them scattered around the game anyway.

Me and my friend started playing coop full time up til Rennala, pass that due to our lvl being higher we were constantly being invaded, and obviously due to us being more toward endgame zones, this was already a pain just exploring and adapting to these zones, with constant invasions this was unbearable. I've been playing fromsoftware games for a long time, I am "use" to being invaded, but damn is this keeping people away from playing coop. My friend, who was new to this kind of game, got salty about it pretty quickly. He summoned me, we get invaded in the 30 seconds following the summon, then every 15 minutes, it's constant. We adopted the "Open your map, I'll guide you" to get to where we wanted and summoned only at bosses unless we were in the mood to get constantly invaded or help was much needed.

The invasion/summoning system needs to change big time. I imagine solo invasions (turned on by using rune arcs) and moving the summoning pools to be near graces would improve the game so much