Failing Summons

Why do so many summons just fail? In Demon Souls I had 99% success with summoning people. In Dark Souls if I am lucky it's around 50% success rate. No, it's not my internet, because other online games work terrific and I am almost always the host.
I have one of the fastest internet subscriptions. Never any problems with other games.

I hate the fact that summons so often fail in Dark Souls.

Most of the time it's failing 4 or 5 times in a row and then I get invaded succesfully by someone.Odd....

Such is the nature of the Beast.

It may be your NAT type. Or it could be the ports that Dark Souls wants is being used up. If it's that, you'd have to go into your modem settings, find the ports you need to forward for Dark Souls on the internet, then forward them for your PS3 or Xbox IP.

That being said, Dark Souls is just unreliable summoning. I don't personally mind if I get a bunch of fails because I'm OK with waiting. Hopefully this helped.

Here is a list of reason's why this may not be working.

1. Bad internet (here its not the case)
2. Sometimes they just fail, joining a summon covenant may help with your summoning.
3. The phantom moved his summon sign or got rid of it while summoning.
4. someone that's invading is interfering with your connection with the phantom.
5. may be a server problem.

EDIT: And one more. He may have been summoned by someone else before you could snag him/her.

JoeBroski09 wrote:It may be your NAT type. Or it could be the ports that Dark Souls wants is being used up. If it's that, you'd have to go into your modem settings, find the ports you need to forward for Dark Souls on the internet, then forward them for your PS3 or Xbox IP.

That being said, Dark Souls is just unreliable summoning. I don't personally mind if I get a bunch of fails because I'm OK with waiting. Hopefully this helped.

Nat type 1. Direct connection to internet. No router. As stated it's not my connection, maybe that of the other player, could be.

Point 4 of the above post is intersting though. Most fails happen at Archives. I try to summon some help, they fail, then I get invaded. No fail. I think that is the case in most times indeed.

TheBigLebowski wrote:

JoeBroski09 wrote:It may be your NAT type. Or it could be the ports that Dark Souls wants is being used up. If it's that, you'd have to go into your modem settings, find the ports you need to forward for Dark Souls on the internet, then forward them for your PS3 or Xbox IP.

That being said, Dark Souls is just unreliable summoning. I don't personally mind if I get a bunch of fails because I'm OK with waiting. Hopefully this helped.

Nat type 1. Direct connection to internet. No router. As stated it's not my connection, maybe that of the other player, could be.

Point 4 of the above post is intersting though. Most fails happen at Archives. I try to summon some help, they fail, then I get invaded. No fail. I think that is the case in most times indeed.

Still could be ports, but it seems you've got your answer

Yes, Dark Souls is just less reliable with the online features than Demon Souls, but that's because the latter had dedicated servers. Dark Souls is p2p, so just only your xbox/ps3 connected with the other one(s). Way more finicky.

I actually found a trick to get a fast summon. It doesn't work all the time, but should if summon signs aren't vanishing every 40 seconds or something

Its simple. Just attempt to summon someone the first time, sit over they sign, and then when you can, attempt it again
So far for me this has always gotten them to summon in my world, and I have really bad internet

Doesn't work with the second though, summon signs vanish after you attempt to summon a second phantom. Still,you don't really ever NEED a second summon


Other than that little trick everything everyone else said is good.

Opedak wrote:I actually found a trick to get a fast summon. It doesn't work all the time, but should if summon signs aren't vanishing every 40 seconds or something

Its simple. Just attempt to summon someone the first time, sit over they sign, and then when you can, attempt it again
So far for me this has always gotten them to summon in my world, and I have really bad internet

Doesn't work with the second though, summon signs vanish after you attempt to summon a second phantom. Still,you don't really ever NEED a second summon


Other than that little trick everything everyone else said is good.

I do the same thing. Except, you don't have to sit on it. But trying to summon the same phantom almost as soon as it fails works. Sometimes it doesn't work for the second. The second usually is easiest to grab after the first fail of the second phantom, find the first sign that pops up, whether it's the one you tried or not. That usually works.

JoeBroski09 wrote:

Opedak wrote:I actually found a trick to get a fast summon. It doesn't work all the time, but should if summon signs aren't vanishing every 40 seconds or something

Its simple. Just attempt to summon someone the first time, sit over they sign, and then when you can, attempt it again
So far for me this has always gotten them to summon in my world, and I have really bad internet

Doesn't work with the second though, summon signs vanish after you attempt to summon a second phantom. Still,you don't really ever NEED a second summon


Other than that little trick everything everyone else said is good.

I do the same thing. Except, you don't have to sit on it. But trying to summon the same phantom almost as soon as it fails works. Sometimes it doesn't work for the second. The second usually is easiest to grab after the first fail of the second phantom, find the first sign that pops up, whether it's the one you tried or not. That usually works.

Ugh. Now I have the urge to just sit somewhere and mess around with trying to summon people. Try to see any sort of pattern. See what little tricks I can come up with to get faster summons

Damn you brain! Thats not what I want to do while playing a video game!

This man voices one of my only complaints of Dark Souls.

Many times, summon fails due to the pickup by another person. Death, invasion. I cant tell you how many times my ss deactivates due to a chance invasion then i dont get invaded at all and i have to put it down again. All luck of the draw i suppose.

Opedak wrote:I actually found a trick to get a fast summon. It doesn't work all the time, but should if summon signs aren't vanishing every 40 seconds or something

Its simple. Just attempt to summon someone the first time, sit over they sign, and then when you can, attempt it again
So far for me this has always gotten them to summon in my world, and I have really bad internet

Doesn't work with the second though, summon signs vanish after you attempt to summon a second phantom. Still,you don't really ever NEED a second summon


Other than that little trick everything everyone else said is good.

This is a good tip! I just tried a few times this evening and yes 90% worked that way! Thanks for the tip.

TheBigLebowski wrote:

Opedak wrote:I actually found a trick to get a fast summon. It doesn't work all the time, but should if summon signs aren't vanishing every 40 seconds or something

Its simple. Just attempt to summon someone the first time, sit over they sign, and then when you can, attempt it again
So far for me this has always gotten them to summon in my world, and I have really bad internet

Doesn't work with the second though, summon signs vanish after you attempt to summon a second phantom. Still,you don't really ever NEED a second summon


Other than that little trick everything everyone else said is good.

This is a good tip! I just tried a few times this evening and yes 90% worked that way! Thanks for the tip.

No problem. Found that one out myself a few days ago. Made the wait a lot less for me. Just thought I should share it ^-^

Extertionist wrote:This man voices one of my only complaints of Dark Souls.

This is also true in my modest opinion. If Dark Souls had the fluid online system as Dem. Souls it would've been a masterpiece for me. Now it's a great game, but with certain flaws. I think they cheaped out on the online part (no dedic. servers, but just p2p is the cheap way out).

But tips like mentioned above do help.