Wouldn't it be awesome if World Tendency came back like this?

... There were no Red, Blue, White, or Gold phantoms, instead it was two colors; White and Black (And grey, I suppose)
When you see a Summon Sign, you can invite that person into your world. When you are "Invaded", it doesn't say "Summoned" or "Invaded". Now, not only are you on edge that someone else is in your world, but are they friendly or an enemy?

If you kill someone, you gain Black Tendency, if you help someone beat a boss, you gain white. This does NOT prevent a Black Phantom from helping someone, nore does it prevent a White phantom from killing someone. You have to CONSTANTLY be on edge if you don't know the other person, because you never really know if they are leading you into a trap or not.

Just a random thought I had.

that would be....amazing.

It would be cool, but just a question.... does that mean the "white phantom" can randomly join your world to help you even if you don't want there help? \(Yes, i know the phantom won't be white)

Slarg232 wrote:If you kill someone, you gain Black Tendency, if you help someone beat a boss, you gain white. This does NOT prevent a Black Phantom from helping someone, nore does it prevent a White phantom from killing someone. You have to CONSTANTLY be on edge if you don't know the other person, because you never really know if they are leading you into a trap or not.

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's as good as you think it would be.

First, it sounds like World Tendency won't do anything. Would it also function like it did in Demons' Souls? If not, then it would be a wast of system resources.

Second, some people are already **** in the game. Newbies stop playing after the first level because of that. I think your idea would just make it worse. Newbies already hate level one invaders that have lightning +5 and chaos +5 weapons. When I play a new character I won't play online until I ring the 2nd bell. Imagine how a newbie would feel if his "helper" killed him. Now imagine how he would feel if the majority of his "helpers" killed him.

Sorry all, was drunk when I originally posted this.

Anyway, you get two items, a Soapstone for Summons, and an Eyestone for "invasions". As your tendancy goes black or white, your Phantom goes black or white as well. You, even as a white phantom trying to help, can still kill the host if not careful (Think Darkwraith and Catbro right now), and as a Black Phantom, you can still help people (Gift Wraithing, co-op in general, such and such). What color your phantom is doesn't affect what you CAN do.

@FattyofDoom: Yes, a Phantom could just randomly join your game, but you would still have to be human, so it's still totally in your control as to if you play with others or not. Also, just because they came to help doesn't mean you aren't going to (violently) reject it.

@Wanderer Reece: Tendency would solely be there to guide you as to what that phantom likes to do; Black Phantoms are not to be trusted, White Phantoms are.
As to the new player comment, it would all depend; if Dark Souls II were to be more linear at the beginning, I don't think it will be a problem. Also, we could easily make it where doing a contrasting action tarnishs your Tendency more, so if a Pure White Phantom killed one person, they would have to help three in order to gain the White back.

^ Now it makes more sense. The problem is still there, but it's not as bad as it first apppeared.

Slarg232 wrote:What color your phantom is doesn't affect what you CAN do.

This makes a new, bigger problem. It sounds like a red can enter a boss fight! That may be enough to make me play offline. :affraid:

WandererReece wrote:^ Now it makes more sense. The problem is still there, but it's not as bad as it first apppeared.

Slarg232 wrote:What color your phantom is doesn't affect what you CAN do.

This makes a new, bigger problem. It sounds like a red can enter a boss fight! That may be enough to make me play offline. :affraid:

Hmmm.... How did I forget that?!?

Half health for Phantoms?

World tendency was always a little too much for me, but I always thought that hollowing should affect your stats for real, not just item drop rate and hygiene

I think you will end up just with the actual system trying to balance your idea. Is good, but maybe only for a certain area so ive developed this idea:


It could be cool that a place like a "Soul Valley" that is so corrupted by the power of the Gods Souls and the Humanity Influences that no one can be sure what is even happening. You can find three cool items:

-Black Sword Pendant: Used to invade other players. You adquire Black tendency by
killing the host, not just invading. You will appear as a colorless phantom.

-White Shield Pendant: Used to help other players, acts like a soapstone but you can also "invade" others world if they have some kind of beacon item. You will appear as a colorless phantom. You will get white tendency if you succeed helping the host.

-Grey Hand pendant: A pendant shaped like a hand. Used to invade other worlds. You will appear as a grey-ish phantom, with a cool aura effect.

-Soul Cipher: A relic from the old days. Its used to calibrate the aura effects in the fabric of reality. You can see your tendency meter with this item and also see if other worlds are touching yours.

Mechanics:

-Color in phantoms: As we know, red=bad white=good yellow=better blue=ohgod/bad. In this area, theres no noob thing such as colors, . Here, you use the soul cipher to know your tendency status, which goes darker or lighter as you kill hosts or help people.

-Tendencies in gameplay:
You can use the black sword pendant even if your tendency is good and also try helping people ifyour tendency is black, but you
will be restricted to your tendency.

If your tendency is black, you will appear as a black phantom if you invade or try to help and you could be able to attack the host, even if he summons you to help him. Of course, you can help him and get some good karma, but he could attack you...

If your tendency is white, you will appear as a white phantom even if you are invading other players, and you will only be able to attack them if the host harms you. If you kill the host you will receive black karma. However, the more white karma, the more rewards you will have, giving players a reason to help other than genuine mercy. The rewards will only be unlocked after reaching the max white tendency.

-Grey Disciples: The executors. This guys use the covenant restricted grey hand pendant to invade people who are being invaded or summoning someone to help them. You will appear as a grey phantom, your tendency doesnt matter here. You will only be able to engage phantoms in combat. The hosts cant harm you. Reaching the top of this covenant will get you a restricted spell to suck karma off the hosts, balancing them and setting your karma darker or lighter depending on the type of karma you suck.
You will only be able to invade properly as a grey disciple if you have reached both max white tendency and black tendency.



Hope this kind of idea helped you.

very well thought out. Its good to see people really thinking about how to improve future games and not just new little features to get it sold.
I'll sometimes just sit and imagine dark souls 2, I'm glad I'm not the only one dreamin about it. I just hope From Soft is listening

Problem with tendency was to get some of the best stuff, you had to manipulate it, and to do that the best way was to play offline

I feel locking off parts of the game with tendency even with this new invasion thing to me isn't that good. There's better ways to activate side questy stuff without tendency.

Btw the doing boss with white phantom point is moot as your tendency goes up from killing a boss anyway

Aside from this, I also feel the invasion and summon mechanics Should stay separate... I mean cone on guys summoning is supposed to help new kids, not troll them.

What if invaders had to be careful of enemies in your world as well. For instance if you are alone in your world then the enemies will target both you and the invader. But if you have a summon with you then the enemies will ignore the invaders like normal. I invade more than I host but I would love to see a dynamic like this going on in DS2. That way you would have to become temporary allies in order to fight off the enemies, the host or the invader could use enemies to their advantage, Gankers would get less of an advantage because the enemies now focus on them, and most importantly of all three way battles between invaders hosts and enemies could occur.

More fights = more awesome. Don't yall agree?