PVP in Dark Souls II is mostly a straightforward affair — You invade or duel, kill your target, and then finish with a condescending gesture. But what about when you pretend to be a friendly, neighbourhood co-op partner? Hilarity, that’s what.
Watch as Yogscast YouTuber Strippin’ trolls unsuspecting players into thinking they can totally trust him, only to murder them quickly and easily. Some background: the basis of this video is the White Ring, which is traded by the Dyna and Tillo at their nest in exchange for Smooth and Silky objects. It’s a ring that gives you the outward appearance of a totally friendly, white phantom. Now go to the Grave of Saints or the Door of Pharros and enter into the Rat King Covenant. By becoming a ratbro, you pull random trespassing players into your world while in either of the locations.
Of course, any experienced player who knows how summoning or the Rat King Covenant works will probably catch on, but there’s always a steady stream of gullible players in Dark Souls II.
YOGSCAST Strippin’ via Dark Souls II Subreddit
To contact the author of this post, write to chrisperson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @papapishu.
Comments
35 responses to “The Latest In Dark Souls II Trolling”
Last night while working the Bastille, I was summoned into another world with another player. Worked ourselves towards the fog gate, gave a cheer, and as the host entered the gate the other player used an item to banish us both from his world.
Are you sure, people have been having connection issues for a while now where it just drops everyone.
On topic however I don’t see how some one would fall for this, the only “friendly” white phantoms are those you summon yourself, the rest rock up in a variety of fancy colours. Normally anything you don’t summon yourself wants to kill you, as a member of the blood cov I know this best as I routinely get summoned to other blood cov member worlds as a grey phantom.
See, THAT is trolling to me, this video is not.
Yep, and that is how Dark Souls 2 became Day-Z……and now makes me want to completely avoid it.
You could play offline and never have to play with anyone, however if you have played the first you already knew this was coming as it is a part of the games core design.
Perhaps games like Dark Souls 2 and Day-Z aren’t for you? Seriously, no disrespect intended.
Brutal and unforgiving PVP is a core part of those games, it’s what makes it appealing to many people (and unappealing to many others). Most games aren’t like that, but Dark Souls and Day-Z are popular precisely because they are brutal.
Imagine a Day-Z where it was a lot harder to kill people unfairly, or a Dark Souls 2 which was much easier and more friendly to more casual players… well then those games would lose the special sauce that sets them apart from the majority of other games which do try to cater to less hardcore audiences.
Dark Souls in particular is wonderfully brutal about killing you repeatedly and exacting a heavy price for failure, for not knowing something which was impossible to know in advance. Dying is how you learn in Dark Souls.
If Day-Z were patched to make co-operation and player unity the primary focus, then the game would just be about building little camps and fighting zombies. People who love Day-Z love that the zombies aren’t the real threat in the game, the people are.
I don’t think you can have games like Day Z and Dark Souls without also having situations which have the potential to make people rage quit. It’s not for everyone.
Oh yea, no offense taken, I should’ve stated that the Multiplayer aspect turns me off the game for the exact same reasons as Day-Z. I’d still like to give DS2 a go in single player after/ when/ if I ever finish the first one.
I love the idea of Day-Z and Dark Souls 2, but I just don’t like the idea of spending a lot of time building up a character, just to have it taken away from you by a douche with nothing better to do with his/ her time. But then again, like you said, some people really dig this possibility in the game, and it is more suited to them than me.
“Trolling”
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Yeah this isn’t trolling. It’s just being an asshole. There’s a difference.
Tolling is just being an asshole for the lulz
I don’t see a problem with the use of the descriptor “trolling”. It’s basically silly (online) harassment, often with the goal of the amusing the person doing it. I think it also originally stemmed from how trolls can set a trap like how they were supposed to live under a bridge sometimes.
This tricking/trapsetting is exactly what this video is about, complete with Ken stage music when it works.
Watched this last night… that is evil. Can’t it be avoided by simply attacking anyone you meet, just in case? As far as I’ve heard, you can’t directly harm friendly targets in DS2… I mean, you can hurt them if you fire a ballista at them, but not by hitting them. Surely it’s just more practical to see everyone as a threat until proven otherwise? If they’re friendly, send them a message explaining your actions; if they’re not, you get the advantage in the ensuing melee.
That’s right, you can’t harm friendly players by just swinging your sword at them.
But you also need to actively summon a friendly player (as far as I’m aware), so if you haven’t summoned anyone, you should immediately be suspicious.
Yes, but if you’re summoned and there is already a (to all outward appearances) white phantom in the world, it’s usually possible that they may have also been summoned by the host. That said, it seems like he’s pulling people into his world by them just being in the same area, so if you’re summoned to another world unwillingly, you’d have to assume everything and everyone there is hostile, regardless of appearance.
Wow. I watched the first kill in the video and stopped. Glorifying this shit Kotaku? Really? This guys being a major asshole to legitimate players? Fuck that.
Edit: Just noticed it’s a Yogscast guy too, my kid idolises those guys, a real pity :\
Most of Yogscast is fine, or at worst they’ll troll each other rather than strangers. Strippin is just a douchebag.
Oh they’re great usually. Simon is my kids favourite, we watch plenty of his videos and absolutely piss ourselves laughing at them. The shower video he did recently, the one with ‘the phantom plumber’ was hilarious as hell. Their minecraft stuff has always been awesome.
The player is in a pvp covenant, he is a legit player. Not his fault that this guy is a schmuck.
Ehhhh, I’m not too sure if it is being a major asshole. Seems part of the game if that item exists. It’s like saying the two rings that hide your weapons is being an asshole. It’s like the Bardic Knock spell, it will only work once.
But then again, I’m also the kind of person who hates OP weapons that lead to one-gun games and spawncamping.
It definitely is being a major asshole, but it’s part of the game, so he’s allowed to do it. However, it is the sort of thing that will eventually give the game a bad name, like it’s given DayZ a questionable one after a while etc.
Yeah, but some people like using it to justify their behaviour. Usually it leads to being complacent and causing a huge wall for new people to get into a franchise. Then they wonder and complain on forums why their favourite series isn’t as popular anymore, usually attributing the lower population to the developers.
I once even met someone who thought an exploit to get easy and faster access to minerals and energy in Supreme Commander 2 was, “A secret added in for advanced players”. That exploit pissed me off so much that I traded my copy in. and I don’t do that often.
You clearly didn’t play the original dark souls as there were entire parts of the map that you couldn’t visit if you were certain levels as you would be invaded near instantly by either general pvp, blade of the dark moon, darkwraith’s, forest hunters, gravelords or dragon disciples. It is part of the game, you should probably go play something else if you think that being a pvp heavy character is being an ass… or just maybe keep some friendlies with you at all times as even two players should be able to repel an invader.
You need 30 rat tails to max out devotion on the rat covenant. You can only get these by killing other players summoned into your world. This is exactly what you are supposed to do. He’s not an “asshole” because he’s using items provided in the game to do what the game tells him to do. If u can’t handle that or understand how games work… Maybe don’t play them?
I don’t agree. I think what he’s doing is legitimately in the spirit of the game.
It’s precisely because of interactions like that that makes me interested in Dark Souls. He’s not using an overpowered build to unfairly win a duel – he’s using trickery and mind games. His victims will only be fooled once by the ruse, they die and they learn. Sounds pretty Dark Souls to me.
Come to think of it, you’re quite right.
However the ‘problem’ I see is that it teaches you to have not trust in anyone because of one shitty experience. Which in turn propagates and has the potential to have a negative impact on the community, where people just don’t trust each other enough to turn their back for one second.
Plus you’ll get copy cats that will do this now which will propagate it even further, thus lowering people’s trust even more and in turn leading to an arguably less enjoyable coop experience.
Yeah I see what you’re saying, but this won’t really be able to effect co-op will it?
I haven’t played the game yet, but I was under the impression that you can’t actually hurt the other player when you’re summoning them or being summoned for co-op – this is a specific trick you can do in a particular area of the game, and an experienced player will know immediately that it’s a ruse, right? So if more people start doing it then it will stop working because everybody will learn what the danger is,
In other words, this isn’t team killing, which is truly asshole behaviour, but really more like “creative PVP” – it was always a PVP scenario, but you’re just tricking your opponent into letting their guard down. Correct me if I’m wrong though, I’ve only played the first Dark Souls and was never particularly successful at PVP anyway.
Yeah, true! I think it’s only when players invade that area and you’ve got the ring trying to protect it.
The only way he gets people is if they fall for it. Trust me, there are way more annoying things – like throwing the acid urns which degrade items. This isn’t ‘glorifying’ dick behaviour, its showcasing Dark Souls at its finest. A game that punishes you, and encourages others to punish you if you make a mistake.
Glad to see this has inspired great conversation amongst everyone! Also great to see the differing points of view on the game 😀
People going out of their way to spoil other people’s entertainment. Yay.
But dying in Dark Souls is part of the entertainment. It’s very straight forward – if you summoned them, you cannot hurt each other. If you didn’t then they might be hostile and you should treat them as such. Why bitch about something that really isn’t that big a deal?
To be fair though, from some of the playthroughs I’ve watched, RatBros need all the help they can get anyway. Their strategies often consist of running away a lot and hoping the monsters will finish you off for them.
Yeah. They’re REALLY annoying and just completely wastes your time. I usually just make sure they can see me, wave and walk back and sit there until they come out. It quickly becomes apparent why they employ those tactics.
Wow I can’t believe people get so angry about watching some dude destroying unsuspecting players like this. If anything the stuff I get upto is so much worse with chameleon spell and backstab unsuspecting victims. LOL
I wish it worked a bit better in PvE. I tried many a times to sneak past those fire lizards while pretending to be a crate, but they always caught me!
Yeah its weird like that, its almost like they dont intend you use spells like that in PvE but only for being a sneaky bastard in PvP
First, if you’re summoned to the rat world and get killed, you loose nothing, no souls no humanity nothing. And second you whiney little girls, you simply have to wear the rat ringin these locations to avoid being susummoned. Weather you are in the covenant or just joined for the ring and left. There are only 2 locations in the game that you can even be summoned. You want to see trolls? How about the way of the blue that always ensured a red phantom is unevenly matched, so if someone lays down a red summon sign to duel you and you summon him, you will automatically summon another blue Sentinel to help cheat. Yeah, you may want to troll better.
blindbraille and puck hear this-
I was summoned to assist in the final boss fight for what I thought would be jolly cooperation.
Upon spawning a red phantom immediately attacked me while the host observed. The host was accompanied by a white phantom. I proceeded to unleash a can of whoop-a** on the red phantom, and right before I was going to deal a death blow I got backstabbed. The white phantom was actually a red phantom wearing the white ring. The host summoned me solely for the purpose to troll souls for the 2 red phantoms there. I do not know what agreement the host reached with his buddies. Nor do I know how there could be 2 red phantoms simultaneously (but yet there they were). Who knows how many unsuspecting people fell victim that day. The experience was so filthy it left me needing a shower. Now that’s trolling…