Dark Souls Dissected #16 - Gravelording Explained & Reviewed

[@illusorywall]

Oops, I forgot to tag chapters with timestamps before launching the video, but they've been added in! Here's the link to my patreon: patreon.com/illusorywall Thanks for watching! ❤

[@elsensei666]

For some reason I still can't see them

[@MortalMercury]

hey, I've got a question for you, do you know anything about the glowing skulls that drop runes placed all over limgrave, liurnia, caelid and altus? How it is decided where and when are they going to be placed? The locations doesn't seem random sometimes, so I thought it might be related to some multiplayer mechanic like the vagrants

[@christopherthomas484]

I think you forgot to credit grayfruit in the video description. Maybe I’m just blind. Edit: alright, we good. Excellent video, btw. Never knew this much about gravelording, I just thought that the spell was cool

[@rat4992]

You are easily my favorite KZbinr. your DS1 content especially rocks

[@selfawaretrashcan4594]

Always love the work you do, it’s incredibly valuable to the community!

[@RibosomesChannel]

My son pointed me to your channel by telling me you cited my 10 years old work on Gravelording. I do not manage my Channel anymore, however I am very thankful for shout outs in this great Gravelord documentary. Keep up good work.

[@illusorywall]

Hey thanks so much, and it's great to hear from you! I remember you breaking all the latest findings of Gravelord mechanics to the community and doing everything you could to document them. The story of gravelording mechanics is incomplete without citing your contributions. Hope you're doing well! :)

[@weirdassbird]

Your an absolute legend Ribosome!

[@riz3778]

it is time to pass the lineage, Ribosomes.

[@fmwyt95]

congratulations, you were too lazy to put on a condom and worked hard to validate one of the most toxic mechanics in any game ever. You are truly a glorious individual.

[@fallenabr7654]

Thanks for the free cringe!

[@candlehand]

I used to gravelord constantly in DS1, I have been preaching the greatness of the gravelord servants for more than 10 years now. Thank you for validating me and letting me prove this was actually real

[@DankSoulsVoid]

Oh it's real. We need it in elden ring. And a rat covenant haha. Just give me some cool covenants!

[@zeroattentiongaming820]

@@DankSoulsVoid Kind of a shock that Elden Ring does nothing with such mechanics despite so many potential factions

[@Dravianpn02]

@@zeroattentiongaming820 it's why I don't pvp in ER. The encounters for 2 and 3, especially 3 for the covenants and the invasion mechanic prior to ER are amazing and in comparison, ER is just not even worth it. Basically no incentive. Not even for invasions.

[@evil2yojik]

I remember I did this one time and was confused when I had to beat 3 people in pvp after using an item

[@turkN9NE]

like people didn't believe you? lol. wtf is wrong with them

[@darkridoom]

“The Carbuncle ate itself.” Will never not be hilarious to me. And it’s a great parallel to the gravelord message.

[@theepotatolord3012]

Aw man i wouldve never expected to see that clip in a place like this

[@theepotatolord3012]

It really caught me off guard

[@liamwhite3522]

The Bananas has gone bad.

[@themfatale]

Gama ovar

[@DarkHypernova]

@@theepotatolord3012 For a moment, I thought the automatic Playlist had skipped to a best of GG video.

[@bigdave7648]

I think 1 way to promote Gravelording would be if, as a Gravelord, whenever your disasters kill a player in their own world a special bloodsign would appear at their death spot which you could "claim" and receive an Eye of Death for. This would promote the Gravelord to walk around and look for bloodsigns for more eyes, while also making their own sign much more visible.

[@illusorywall]

I dig it! Anything to help with feedback that you're affecting other players. This covenant was a great idea that just needing some more workshopping.

[@augustday9483]

Good idea. I dig it.

[@mark0183]

Grant us eyes 👀

[@deadfurydbf9647]

Grant us eyesss....​@@mark0183

[@KyeEnzoden]

Ooh, I dig this too. It's also far more immersive and would make you really Feel like a Gravelord.

[@Phurzt]

One thing I always said Gravelording should have if it was ever brought back is that for NG players, simply replace an existing enemy with a black phantom enemy instead of adding a new one. Save the uber ganks for ng+. This means on first playthrough strategies dont change, just a handful of enemies become slightly more difficult. Insintive to still kill the gravelord but also nothing TOO extreme that changes the 1st playthrough experiance.

[@StoneTheCr0w]

They tried it with Demon Souls and Ringed City DS3 DLC.

[@GrodyPineman]

I always misinterpreted 'Disasters are gone after the defeat of a Gravelord Servant' as tutorial text akin to 'seek a healer in New Londo' when you get cursed, like the game is telling you 'you're gravelorded go find the invasion sign to fix your world' and not 'the disasters in your world are now gone because the gravelord is dead.' Confused the hell out of me since obviously I *never* had black phantom enemies when this sign would pop up lmao

[@illusorywall]

You're not alone! A lot of people misinterpret the message to mean that it's asking you to do something, rather than something just having ended. It's so confusing and unintuitive, lol.

[@vladildikan]

@@illusorywall I've never played ng+ long enough to get black phantoms from it but I always figured it was over after that message, not that it just started. Granted, I didn't know exactly what was over until I started looking up covenant info to get some cheevo's, but I generally figured things had gone back to the status quo from that message.

[@darklorddisco]

This was 100% my experience with Gravelording!

[@marsenal]

Haha same! Always thought it meants "Disasters will be gone after the defeat of a Gravelord Servant" and then I continued playing anxiously waiting for a player to appear as phantom and stab me in the back.

[@arkhmand5025]

000

[@Van-Leo]

the phantoms you sometimes see dying or just going about in their own world, if there were a live version of that for the grave lord to see in their own world, that would be cool

[@illusorywall]

that would be so sick! another really good idea I hadn't thought of. If you gave them the higher-detailed colorful appearance that player ghosts have when they're next to bonfires, but of course not needing them to be near bonfires for this.

[@DankSoulsVoid]

@@illusorywall give the ghosts a black aura so you know they're you're victims

[@Bluecho4]

@@illusorywall Maybe showing it if the other player is within a certain radius of red phantoms summoned by the curse. So the Gravelord Servant gets to see their handiwork in action.

[@liamwhite3522]

@@Bluecho4 While you have the gravelord aura, the grey visions of other players are entirely replaced with grey visions of your victims, and the nearest black phantom enemies to them.

[@DarkHypernova]

@@illusorywall Or maybe add something like black bloodstains that indicate those deaths were caused by your gravelording at some point.

[@chromonastiri2446]

This is one of the coolest mechanics in the entire series, I wish From would bring it back in some way eventually

[@djbeema]

Would be cool if they did *anything* for ng+ anymore. Only the "b team" bothered being even slightly inventive. Sigh

[@thezestfall1st107]

I agree let’s say it were added in Elden rings dlc (to avoid massive scope let’s say it only works in the areas added in that dlc) if that dlc has anything ti do with miquella that’s be an interesting way ti flavor it, new enemies enthralled by Miquella and you have to hunt down the sign of the person who sword allegiance to him. Maybe that doesn’t exactly fit the character but it’s one way to think about it.

[@Bilndmann]

Worst part is they basically removed covenants in Elden ring. Honestly upset from soft is gutting some of the features that made their games unique.

[@vwts]

@@Bilndmann they kinda gave up on the traditional invasion mechanics in order to make the game more popular. If people can’t deal with being invaded, they probably can’t deal with something like this either lol

[@CrowsofAcheron]

@@Bilndmann Elden Ring has various groups you can join, such as the Volcano Manor, Moghwyn Dynasty, the Frenzied Flame, the GO Fundamentalists, the Round Table Hold assassins, Dragon Communion, etc. There's just no unique invasion mechanics behind any of them. Tbh, this isn't much of a problem, because it means there aren't any items or spells gated behind grinding pvp trophies. I think it's a win/win

[@ShinduPK4]

The covenants missing in Elden Ring is honestly my biggest gripe with it. I really miss them and I hope From will add a few in a potential DLC.

[@aceclover758]

Really? No covenants? Disappointing given the storyline and how open world it is. Would make great to serve under a King or warlord

[@felipdn3329]

@@aceclover758 tbh if fromsoft wasn't up to actually making interesting covenants (which are currently fetch quests and trigger invasions) i think it's better to just not add them.

[@-pressxtostart-]

@@felipdn3329 no

[@RedKnightOfficial]

@@-pressxtostart- In some ways, it also wouldn't make sense for the fellow Tarnished to join a covenant, I mean your life's purpose is to ascend or descend the order of the Erdtree. Dark Souls covenants kinda worked for its setting entirely though

[@vitorhenrique5229]

​@@RedKnightOfficial it would make sense to have something like a prince of death covenant, or a mogh covenant. I think the prince of death could work in a neat way where, if you joined the beast clergyman, it would be asked that you invaded and killed those who joined the prince of death.

[@Cosmic-Sorceress-17]

Okay, can I just say that the Black Phantom Crystal Golems look absolutely amazing? Like they're made of DS3's Dark Gems or some kind of crystalized blood magic.

[@Bluecho4]

In addition to getting souls when a victim dies, the Gravelord Servant should also get a lesser amount of souls whenever the victim kills a red phantom summoned by the Eye of Death. As a further nod to the idea that no matter what, the Gravelord Servant (and Nito) benefit.

[@illusorywall]

I dig that. Even if it's a tiny amount of souls, just to also be aware of when someone else is kicking ass against the enemies you spawned. It doesn't just have to be a celebration of messing with other players, you could appreciate knowing someone is rising to the challenge just fine.

[@rat4992]

I love that. For a non existent wish fulfillment list I would add that this should go toward the gravelord leveling up in the covenant. So should the victim dying to a black phantom

[@Laezar1]

I think that's an amazing idea and it makes it a great incentive to actually do it

[@ostrichlord9097]

Passive income 😏

[@Laezar1]

@@ostrichlord9097 it's not that passive if you take invasions into account, but yeah if you feel like you can deal with the invaders there'd be a real incentive to just gravelord while going about your day

[@gmkgoat]

I always went for the weirdo covenants in dark souls despite how terribly they were implemented. Gravelords, royal rats, and mound makers gave me the best multiplayer experiences.

[@davidwilliams5497]

Mound Makers is such underrated fun. I love placing a summon sign, get someone who isn’t sure of how the covenant works, and run around “helping” them clear a few mobs until they trust me. Then, once they get hit by a tough enemy, turn on them and finish them off myself. The surprise of turning on them is always so fun.

[@jackalope_hunter]

@@davidwilliams5497 Seconded. Mound makers were hella fun. But you can't just play it as another red, gotta make everyone question what your real plans are. hehe

[@blackbloom8552]

@@davidwilliams5497 my main gripe with mound makers is that they get a big obvious pink summon sign which no regular person would summon again once they realise these are phantoms that can backstab you if they feels like it.

[@davidwilliams5497]

@@blackbloom8552 yeah, you’re not wrong. and at this point you’re just getting ganked more often than not. But back in the day, when it was still new and there were a lot of players that didn’t know what it was, it was so much fun.

[@robertboucherjr.7296]

What about MoundMakers with an Untrue White Ring?

[@Duskwalker68]

I miss Gravelording, it was the most unique covenant by far and it was hilarious to watch people try to find me and die in the process.

[@DankSoulsVoid]

I really miss the rat covenant for this reason

[@Duskwalker68]

@@DankSoulsVoid That one was good too!

[@dillis2188]

@@DankSoulsVoid I remember getting ragemail for that one - guy thought I was hacking. Was week one of release, if I recall.

[@JJEERRPP]

@@dillis2188 that was me.

[@BattleSpew]

Royal Rat covenant was a good follow-up. Kept things limited to non-main path zones, allowing those who did not want to interact with it able to just avoid it completely, but great fun for anyone who did want it. Bell Keepers were somewhat similar, too.

[@samuelhdiamond42]

IW has been doing this for so long, the historic footage of people encountering Gravelord Phantoms has them quoting research from IW. That's pretty amazing.

[@davecorry7723]

Loved DS1 but never played NG+ or on-line, so even now, I had very little clue about Gravelording. I still remember seeing that message, though. I had no idea what it was for, but I loved it. Those first three words. "Disasters are gone." It's just soooo great. Thank you, sir, for a magnificent video.

[@walternunez4118]

I cannot stress enough how truly terrifying the black phantom version of the chained prisoners are. A friend and I were goofing around in the abyss when we got the disaster message and found the one near the bonfire. That *thing* almost one-tapped me, wearing full Havel, 70 vit and FaP, they have insane amounts of poise, and the area attacks with the chain are... ☠️☠️☠️

[@dhayris160]

There was an OnlyAfro video that showed them off. TERRIFYING.

[@noamias4897]

Hey I never played multiplayer so I’m wondering what goofing around in the abyss with a friend means, were you pvping or how does co op work? I thought the abyss was a boss arena

[@EmperorZ19]

​@@noamias4897 They mean the Chasm of the Abyss, the final zone of the DLC content. It's a relatively normal area

[@noamias4897]

@@EmperorZ19 oh I was thinking four kings boss arena or something. Thanks! That makes much more sense. Happy new year

[@valorune]

I kinda liked the obscure, unexplained mechanics of the older games. While I understand why they make their newer game's features more transparent, it was fun having no idea why something worked the way it did and then testing it out to get a vague understanding of the game. It honestly added to the unique feel of the game and to the growth as a player, because the more you know the better you play.

[@letthebasscannon223]

Sadly these days most obscure mechanics would get datamined before long instead of being really mysterious

[@tomm9056]

@@letthebasscannon223 True, but keep in mind that it took around a year to figure out how poise worked in Dark Souls 3. I believe it was a guy with a PhD who finally figured it out lmao

[@Myrskylintu]

Moreover, even in case of datamining it would still add the extra step of a common player having to look it up. If you just played the game blind and avoided spoilers and wikis like the covid, you could remain in the dark and experience vague and unexplained mechanics for yourself and have fun getting lost, and learning over time, figuring things out for yourself. Still, I feel like the obscure mechanics for mainline games are sadly a thing of the past, and you're better off expecting to find them mostly in indie games nowadays.

[@psterud]

Totally agree. That mystery made the game captivating and scary. I remember early on (2014-ish) getting invaded for the first time. Scared the crap out of me. I didn't know if my heart could take it. I was down by the Hydra area, and I did my best to hide. I didn't know what else to do. When the invader finally found me he gave me one of the shrug gestures, like, "Why are you being such a puss?" It was only later, after I learned how to invade myself, that I understood how that whole thing worked, and that not all invaders were bad.

[@rat4992]

Demons souls and dark souls 1 had much more character imo

[@Jopeymessmusic]

I can remember the only time playing the original release of DS1 on the 360, being gravelorded on the run down to Nito in TOTG. At the time, having never experienced that kind of mechanic in a game. It was an incredible discovery in my Souls journey. Shame it's been relegated to erasure through exclusion in the later titles.

[@evangregory1513]

Worth mentioning that Sekiro has a version of this mechanic too, extra ghostly enemies called "Vengeful Apparitions" spawn in certain areas after a number of bosses have been defeated. This makes some areas that the player could have gone to earlier more difficult if approached later in the game. Hopeful that this mechanic gets iterated on in future From games!

[@yellowsaurus4895]

They always appear in whatever area you go to last when gathering the incense ingredients if im not mistaken. I think they also appear in the previous areas at that same time (getting any 2 of the 3 ingredients triggers the "evening" part of the game's night/day cycle) but there's really no reason to go back there unless you're being very completionist, so most players probably never see them

[@radegast2346]

Sekiro punches you in the nuts even for playing lol,ive never gone past guardian ape.

[@MadaraMK1]

u got this I was in the same position so I believe in u @@radegast2346

[@RagnellAvalon]

@@radegast2346 Guardian Ape is painful due to his very high-quality hitboxes but once you get past that fight the game gets MUCH easier

[@GreenEyedDazzler]

@@RagnellAvalonidk about that dog, final boss of true ending I still have yet to beat doesn’t seem worth it

[@Marsh4141]

I think it's insanely cool how yall found the specific code for those black phantom channelers to not teleport. Mad props for this Dark Souls deep dive.

[@noahnunn.mp3]

9-5 I

[@Arexion5293]

Here's an idea: Dried Fingers (and equivalent items) spawn black phantom enemies. You unlock an extra co-op partner spot, increase invasion rate and also get more enemies. And you can do it offline as well just for the extra enemies, which could be given altered soul and item drops.

[@spookzer16]

Can you imagine how cool that'd be for ng+ and replayability? Like imagine if there were certain rewards for killing specific black phantoms that speeds up game progression at the cost of difficulty.

[@dreadknight0]

Elden Ring surely needs whay they did with Sekiro, where they added 2 extra hard modes. The bell wich make enemies stronger and the Kuro Charm where you are punished for not do a perfect parry. The Dried Finger to summon more enemies would be like the bell and then add another mechanic to make everyone stronger. That would be awesome for veterans. In my own first game of Elden Ring I limited myself to only lvl 85 and weapon +12 until the end of the game to can feel like a noob again and surely worked nice.

[@eliteclasswarrior94]

Maybe something like "Miquella's skull" from the dlc

[@saeyabor]

This sounds like "Kuro's Charm" on angel dust.

[@Noway-sg8md]

That idea sounds so good that they will probably never do it. I'm sure they'll just keep focused on constantly attempting to balance PvP.

[@forgot7en]

If I'm feeling particularly wicked, I'll go drop a Gravelord sign in the red drake bridge. You always spawn in the middle of the bridge as an invader, so the host can trigger the drake to breathe fire and, unless the invader has high enough resistance, they get one-shotted. So I think that's the fastest way to farm for Eyes of Death!

[@lucianjester6857]

but the sign replace when replace you so

[@NocturnalNick]

Godwyn should absolutely have a Those Who Live in Death version of Gravelords

[@Etticos.]

That’d be so sick. Especially if there is a full fledged covenant that rewards you new Death spells and Death weapons.

[@lillymay6157]

i think this would be a really good feature for the Recusants because the actual mechanics fit their theme better and it makes them actually different from the bloody fingers

[@realhumanbean7915]

It’s incredible how a single player can turn your whole game into a DS2 SOFTS boss run

[@kennykrool74]

I know you wont believe this but ive been trying to find footage of the Black phantom enemies in Lost Izalith since I was like 11 years old. Ive brought this up to multiple people I know who thought I was making it up. It got to the point that I thought this was a fever dream I had until I saw this video. I'm glad that 11 year old me got to have this experience :)

[@nickbrydels1894]

One of my favorite experiences in pvp was when I was invading as a red phantom, I ended up in a gravelord servants world and we just hung out killing blue phantoms together for like 45 minutes. It was a blast.

[@Mouse_Librarian]

No way. While I can't say for sure that I was the one who managed to gravelord you back then, I definitely remember trying to do the same thing to Peeve at the time. Small world.

[@illusorywall]

Haha wow, that would be amazing!

[@Consumstra]

Since gravelording only works in online, it means certain areas can't have black phantoms. Like Undead Asylum, Ash lake, great hollow, duke archive prison and a few others. Makes me really curious how dangerous some of these areas could be.

[@illusorywall]

Yeah the offline areas are something I was really really hoping would've had extra enemies set that were simply "impossible" to trigger, but they're not there at all sadly. The devs didn't waste any time on that, they must've waited on placing the Black Phantoms around until after they really knew which areas would be online and offline.

[@Nephutis]

@@illusorywall did you check ash lake specifically? could have sworn back when debug was just leaked i saw a post about someone finding unused black phantoms there.

[@sewaprolo]

Imagine black phantom Hydras? That'd be terrifying and awesome at the same time.

[@Rexfuselier]

Imagine getting gravelorded in fire link shrine

[@illusorywall]

@@sewaprolo I thought I was thinking outside the box with the giant tree in that one shot, but I never considered the Hydras. 💀

[@themodesthavel]

One thing that nobody seems to mention is that Gravelording a world is like spreading a disease, and the infection spreads. This is Nito's specialty, as stated in the intro he spreads "a miasma of death and disease". Even though Nito's Greatsword does toxic, I think toxic mist or dark fog would have been another great rank up reward. Randomized anything is great, especially if it's rare and not fully understood, as it'll keep new people and seasoned players on their toes. I also like how the covenant is in a secret location, making it more unknown to infected players. A cool covenant concept I hope they bring back in a future title, along with something like Mad Phantoms, which could've been perfect in ER btw :( Personally I think Gravelording should bring new enemies on NG, but not add as much (we don't need several moss knights in one spot, just 1-2 lol). Maybe add that much on NG+. However this can be difficult in future games, as more area's = more work involving enemy placement just for one covenant. I can see it being too much work from a design perspective. This could have made Fromsoft say "never again" in regards to this idea. Maybe something easier, like just buffing all enemies by a percentage or increasing agro range in that area? In ER maybe make all night events active by putting you're game in a perpetual night state (Morgott Covenant). Anyway great video, informative as always

[@Internetismyfriend]

I would have used the Prince of death godwyn and the death priestess as the covenant leader. It would spread the death mark onto enemies making them tougher and maybe spawning 1-2 more powerful or unique enemies. This would be more similar to nito than morghott.

[@tristanjackson5343]

You'll be happy to know grave lording is alive and well in Undead Burg when we made our new characters for this playthrough we encountered at least two gravelords on separate occasions

[@sanguillotine]

It was alive in blight town as well, last I played, kept getting the message.

[@jrmungandr_4404]

another issue i personally would have with gravelording, that you have not addressed is the fact that there are some players (myself included) that would want to experience the full extent of black phantom enemies in NG. The solution i propose is an altar, somewhere in the begining of the game, approprietly tied lore-wise into the world, that protects players from gravelording (or at least the stronger variant) in NG. The altar would be turned on by default, with warnings plastered all over it to make sure new players don't accidentally screw themselves over by mistake, and provide an option for willing, experienced players a way to participate in gravelording in NG. The altar could become broken in NG+ to signal to players that the protection from gravelording has run out.

[@illusorywall]

That's a good idea! It wouldn't be bad if you're the one saying it's okay to happen in regular NG.

[@wyattholmes396]

So basically a better, online dependent version of the bell demon from sekiro? Yeah that'd be amazing.

[@monhi64]

I support it, even if only for a he fact that it’s kind of funny that from soft is so anti difficulty settings that they accidentally reinvented them. Not that I’m roasting your idea, I pretty much always support more customization options

[@LegendOfSolidus]

Coming across something so rare you didn't know it existed even after hundreds of hours played is really cool but can also be quite startling, like I remember the first time I saw a Vagrant, it was a black phantom version on DS Remastered for Switch. I was in Tomb of the Giants and I thought I was going crazy. Never encountered a black phantom enemy outside of that, but I can imagine I would've been very startled to turn around the corner and see a brand new enemy I've never seen before after again, hundreds of hours. I love stuff like this about games, and the Souls games are rich with secrets and weird mechanics. Great video, I can tell it took a lot of time! 👍

[@DakkaBert]

I ran into an evil vagrant, on the flying buttress w/silver archers in anor londor, on TWO different playthroughs

[@ThePigKnight]

DS2 had the concept of Sin you gained from killing NPCs and players. I think black phantoms should spawn in games if you generate a lot of sin from invading or killing NPCs.

[@vladildikan]

That seems to go along with the world tendency of demon's souls, but instead attached to that game's player tendency mechanic.

[@16m49x3]

Maybe it could balance against the enemies that just disappear if you kill them too much in ds2

[@SJLuis]

DS1 had sin too, it's when you get aggro from an NPC or get yourself inside the "Indictment" item. YOU HAVE BEEN INDICTED

[@cupriferouscatalyst3708]

I had never even heard about gravelording until now. It's crazy how I'm still realizing more and more to this day about just how experimental this game was!

[@Borkomora]

I spent over a thousand hours playing dark souls 1 between 2011-2013. I have memory of seeing black phantoms, but i have more memories of wondering why i kept seeing that message pop up without ever seeing a black phantom had NO idea that NG+ was a requirement. I rarely go to NG+. I'm a "new character" kinda guy. Never thought i'd be learning something new about ds1 in 2023 lol

[@YammoYammamoto]

uhm... I played for like an hour before seeing the sign. still have ZERO idea what it is about... especially since people are saying it didn't exist in Elden Ring - it can't be the red invaders that are present ALL OVER the map... making it even more confusing.

[@Bathezid]

On my first playthrough, when the disasters are gone message first appeared in my game I was genuinely nervous that I did something I shouldn't have done. Took me over a year to learn that it was indeed something to be nervous about, but only on ng+! Great memories.

[@slickmcwilly]

same here, and it was early enough after it came out that i couldn't really find any info on it online either

[@NIkolla13]

Just imagine this mechanic in Elden Ring, where you can mark other players and they would get hunted by the Night's Cavalry or something.

[@ethanwashington6789]

Godwyn would match the idea of a "remastered" gravelord covenant perfectly

[@NoConsequenc3]

That would be fucking sick holy fuck. You'd get buddy buddy with Morgott somehow and you'd inform his Night's Cavalry to find and kill the target. Maybe you'd have to like... touch them during an invasion and make it out alive?

[@dumbsterdives]

@@ethanwashington6789 Itd be a good way to get and/or reason to use deathblight spells too

[@aratanaru6200]

that would be amazing, also make it tied godwyn, he basically elden ring gravelord already

[@TechNinjaSigma]

That'd be awesome!

[@AkashWShah]

I'm so happy grayfruit was featured in this video! I can't wait to hear his reaction to finding out.

[@prettycrumby]

Same, I saw that and got excited

[@ИванБрайт-м6п]

He already know this, and talks about it at 7:00 in his sixth pizza tower stream vod

[@mcrarburger]

@@ИванБрайт-м6п yooo w/ the time stamp and everything?? thank you!!

[@spenser4885]

for the longest time i thought the "disasters are gone" meant i had just *gotten* gravelorded, like it was saying "hey you see these new enemies? they're gone once you defeat the gravelord servant". amazing video as always, thank you for all the work you put into figuring a lot of this kind of stuff years ago when the games came out, and for all the work you do now to get the message out once the dust has settled

[@kayeskibbler647]

Your explanation of gravelording incentive structure is so illuminating, and with the absence of covenants in elden ring im so aware now of their value in multiplayer. Its so strong in concept in fact that i think it could be the entire basis of multiplayer in another game. There is so much to build off of it, and it creates asynchronous, direct antagonization in a fun way. So cool

[@defenderbender303]

Just wanted to say, you probably have the best quality/output of any of the KZbinrs I watch. Keep doing what you're doing man

[@Rhysdoesletsplays]

Imagine if everytime a player is killed by a black phantom you placed in their world then you were buffed temporarily until death with it being able to stack multiple times. The amount of stacks could also effect the scaling of the black phantoms as well. This would mean players invading the gravelord host would have to work together to take him down sort of like a raid or a pvp boss fight. Combine this with the fire effect on the gravelord host becoming more vibrant for every player killed. You could turn this into a really cool PvP raid which incentivises players to take the Gravelord Host down before they become too powerful.

[@SuperbFairy]

it's a cool concept, but given that players have to invade the gravelord, in practice it would be a horrible mechanic in a game like DS1 - between builds, damage, combat exploits like chain backstabbing/cancelling etc it would just incentivise players to play like dicks and get even worse to deal with as the game just stat buffs them further. The idea of a coop raid is really neat, but tying a difficulty effect to a player that also gets given buffs until they die and remove the difficulty would lead to a load of feelsbad for players

[@thegrim418]

Or how about when you kill a red phantom it spawns a blue phantom in the gravelord's world when you find the sign and invade to give you an edge.

[@xen3588]

capitalism in dark souls

[@Tackitt]

This would be really cool if the players who invade the gravelord and win also get a lengthy buff when they return to their games.

[@monadamus42]

Great idea!

[@cordis1272]

While not realistic in this game, I think an interesting way of tackling the moving summoning signs would be to use a similar system as the idols in Elden Ring, where summon signs gather at a fixed location.

[@Be_And]

Amazing as always, finding technical details behind the scenes. _Very_ fond core memories unlocked of Gravelording in Oolacile from this video.

[@tastychunks]

Challenge runner spotted :)

[@BrettFairchild]

Incredible content. I especially appreciate how you’re trying to preserve the history of the community, as early DS1 community stories often gets forgotten, relegated to myth or misremembered

[@liamwhite3522]

Concept: Gravelord phantoms release ~70% of the souls they would normally drop, and when killed a black stream of souls leaves them and tracks towards the summon sign. This will guide cursed players towards the solution to their problems. Then, upon the death of the gravelord servant, cursed players get back all the 30% they didn't get all at once (as long as you invaded the gravelord, maybe). Even if you don't interact with the sign, you're still getting more souls than if you weren't cursed, but you could get more if you smack the pinata.

[@Thegeobot]

I really wish they reiterate on Grave Lording and Vagrants in future games! Also Hearing Bells sound from other worlds, these are such cool early ideas from From Soft games.

[@qwopiretyu]

They need to build a game around one type of non traditional multiplayer. A blade of the dark moon game where depending how you beat the game you either get ng+ or side with the boss and that file now plays invasions into ng+ but it locks the file so you gotta have 2

[@deepism]

It really feels as though Fromsoft, as they've put out more and more games, have subsequently lost more & more of their creativity when it comes to their enemy design and multiplayer design. Elden Ring is kind of the culmination of that, that feeling made manifest. They use the same handful of enemies in every single area of the game with almost nothing unique about them. Once you notice that, the game starts to get very, very boring, and very, very quickly. The lack of intriguing multiplayer elements really doesn't help that either. There is no incentive whatsoever to participate in multiplayer activities. This is going to be a very hot take, but I really believe that Elden Ring is Fromsoft's weakest entry in their lineup of amazing games. I don't know how that game got so popular, honestly. Like, as I go back and play their older games, Elden Ring is just so much less engaging and entertaining from a gameplay perspective. Even Dark Souls 3 (where I initially started to notice that trend) I honestly feel plays better than it. The more I talk about Elden ring, the more I realize just how underwhelming it is, comparatively.

[@Thegeobot]

@@deepism well i think you are just talking for your yourself here, i don't agree, i can say with all confidence that the weakest element for me in Elder Ring is enemy variety, but i do not believe that this has anything to do with creativity but rather how big the map is in relation to how much enemies\bosses they where able to design or redesign, the size of the world definetly hurts the experience for me, reaching the end of a dungeon or entering a new area just to find the same mobs reused fels bad. Boss rooms felt very tiresom for me, this is the strongest element from previous games, you are always fighting new creatures and bosses, This game is too big for it's own good, and this trend started in Sekiro, you fight Jouzo like 4 times, Isshin twice, Guardian appe 3 times, and then Shichimen and headless warriors are repeated through the game so on and so fort, in this sense DS3 and Bloodborne where the strongest for me, You never fight a boos twice (exept for chalice dungeons wich seem to be what ended up evolving into the Elden Ring dungeons) this game also takes one of the worst things from DS2 wich is multy mob boos battles where they throw A Missbegotten and a crucible knight together in an arena and call it a bossfight, i hate that. But i very much desagree that they have gone creatibly bankrupt over time since DS3, that is crazy talk, i was playing The God of war game and for me was getting so tiredsome because every enemy is the same but is just blue or red or green depending of the level you fight it ugh, From Soft games have spoiled me with such rich enemie variety, and im still finding new things about enemies to this day, Kindred of rot enemies has protuding cordiceps things coming out of their necks, Duelist enemies have a grab with a serpent coming out of their arms, cementery shades have a crab in their head, Enemies in the world have Godgywn's fave growing in their bodies, golem type enemies turn against eachother if hit by cristal knives, ghost telling you lore in the world are always acompanied by mushrooms, there is probably so many other things out there that people have found. Anyway i do know why the game became so popular, cause is open world, masses just can't get enough of open world games, I also have a hot take and is the opinion that Red dead Redemption 2 sucks, it has such an amazing open world and graphics and detail but the developers only want you to go and do this super scripted Uncharted type missions when they sould have focused on the sanbox and player freedom of this world, even hunting legendary animals is a chore, but is open world so i guess Game of the year, i don't even think the story is good, but it has such a huge production value behind it so people loved it. Anyway is ok to desagree.

[@skruntfanatic]

@@deepism damn what a dog shit take but you’re allowed it I guess

[@deepism]

@@Thegeobot Yeah, it might just be moreso a problem that they've just stretched themselves too thin with the game world being so big. Going on from that, this game might've been even better if they'd taken a Dark Souls 1 approach, which was still open-world but just a very claustrophobic one. The Subterranean Shunning Grounds was such a cool area because it had that tight level design with the freedom to go about exploring it however you wanted. It felt very nice. Same goes for places like Leyndell and pretty much all of the underground areas.

[@SmoughTown]

Such a great video dude, love tbis mechanic and covenant. Thanks for doing it justice

[@arbiter-]

gotta say I'm impressed with your location descriptions considering how vague and complex some areas can be. I wish I had more of these interactions when I played, I've barely seen any of these enemies

[@souljaboy2384]

I have only done one playthrough of dark souls, and it was on the switch. I was also one of a grand 5 people who played it in the switch and i kept getting matched with some dude who was always gravelording. He kept getting killed though, so all i would see was that "disasters" message. I never understood what was happening until watching this, but now I appreciate more the exclusive switch souls clique i was in.

[@Capta1nAsh]

The lack of extra enemies/black phontoms in DS3 really felt like a step back, and it's a shame that they didn't tweak Gravelording for DS:R

[@psterud]

They've been backstepping for a while. I agree. I'm sure it's controversial, but they seem to listen too much to normal feedback from players. I know that's a "git gud" kind of statement, but their stuff is increasingly watered down. You could really see it in the DS2 release. There was so much backlash, and they changed the game so much, and not all for the better. Now, like with Elden Ring, the game is so watered down from the start. I'm afraid for the company.

[@kazoomer4373]

@@psterud the amount of new players that constantly cry is also a big issue. I know invasions have always been controversial to some extent but the amount of hate people have for invaders/invasions in elden ring is just ridiculous. Literally have people calling for the mechanic to be removed entirely. Legit have seen tons of people saying that being invaded (intentional game mechanic) is "griefing". Makes me worried tbh. Invasions just get more host sided with every new game. What more do people want? The game already becomes trivial while playing coop. I don't understand why people want their hands held so damn much nowadays.

[@psterud]

@@kazoomer4373 I hear you. It's a little sad. I mean, I'll admit that when I first started playing Demon's Souls and Dark Souls on PS3, it scared the living crap out of me when I got invaded. It pretty much meant I was going to die (which, in hindsight, is not a big deal, it just felt like it at the time). Later, I learned that not all invaders are bad, they just want to interact, maybe give you some loot if you're too weak to fight them. That was my angle when I invaded. If someone was too scared, too weak, I'd give them some stuff to help them out, then bow and leave. For an invader, it's pretty much useless to kill a noob and make them feel bad. It was so much more fulfilling to go up against a good player or a squad. I'd lose half the time, or more, but that was part of the fun. But there were also some very toxic invaders. People who hacked in various ways, people who would do the most unethical things to win a fight. That wasn't fun at all. Face me and fight me. If one of us loses, no big deal, right? Don't cheat so you can win. That just means you're insecure on some level. Not cool. I don't know what the invasion system is like in Elden Ring. I played it through once offline (just so I didn't have to see all the messages everywhere). What I do know is that the invasion system in Dark Souls 1 was amazing. Scary and fun, depending. Demon's Souls was OK, but it was dying out when I started. I kind of get that new people don't want their games messed with by other human players. These games are hard enough already, without some rando coming in and killing them and maybe making them lose their souls or whatever. But it shows that things are evolving, that new players didn't experience the early days, and they don't know the history of these games and this company, and what made a game like Elden Ring possible. And I'm genuinely sad for those people, that they never got to experience the real thing at its prime. It was amazing. Simultaneously, I'm happy that they get to experience some of that goodness that FromSoft makes. Everything is a tradeoff. But yeah, From will probably adjust their games, like they've done in the past, to please the masses. Veterans like me will fade away while hordes of new players will enter, and the company will make lots of money. Such is life.

[@burningsexuality1540]

@@psterud when you’re pretentious as fuck

[@megalinc]

We want 1.0 gravelording enemy placement

[@illusorywall]

I'll throw it on the to-do pile but it'll honestly take me a while to get there. But for now I'm happy to review the summary of the results. There's zero differences in the number of black phantoms, none are added nor removed nor turned into different enemy types. It's just different placements in the map: Undead Burg: 5 total, 3 moved Lower Burg: 2 total, 1 moved Undead Parish: 5 total, 1 moved Darkroot Garden: 10 total, 8 moved The Depths: 14 total, 7 moved Blighttown: 10 total, 9 moved Sen’s Fortress: 10 total, 8 moved New Londo Ruins: 6 total, 4 moved Anor Londo: 10 total, 8 moved Painted World: 12 total, 4 moved Duke’s Archives: 10 total, 7 moved The Catacombs: 11 total, 11 moved Tomb of the Giants: 10 total, 2 moved Demon Ruins: 5 total, 1 moved Lost Izalith: 3 total, 1 moved The Kiln: 5 total, 5 moved All: 128 total, 80 moved 62.5% moved Majority of changes are like, enemy moved within ~15 feet of where it was. Some a bit further but not usually super far. There's not an obvious overall trend of trying to make things easier or harder, really feels like they were making subtle changes on a case-by-case basis. There's a couple really silly ones where they moved like ~1 foot. And the Duke's Archives original placement almost feels like the enemy placement equivalent of a shitpost. It might be the funniest thing in the unpatched game; What I'll say for now is that the Channelers WOULD have been VERY annoying there, so that place experienced by far the biggest downgrade in difficulty. Sen's Fortress is also of some note in that lots of those BP enemies there got moved REALLY far from their original locations, so that stands out. It's also kind of funny that TotG didn't have much changed. The worst place to be Gravelorded and they were like "yeah, that's fine".😅

[@rat4992]

@@illusorywall jfc you’re a beast

[@YsoKain]

I see the amount of enemies and all i can think of is how much fun I'd have , i have to look into playing the gravelord mod as i think getting naturally gravelorded is kinda impossible nowadays

[@megalinc]

You're a legend dude, can't wait to see what else you've got on store for us

[@LumpyCrumpets]

@@illusorywall the one foot changes were probably devs dragging and dropping them somewhere else in whatever tool they use, deciding they don't like the new spot, then manually moving them back if i had to guess

[@Arudap]

Isn't it great though, that the one area in which they forgot to turn off Gravelording, the Painted World, also happens to be the area where Nito was placed in the prototype version of the map?

[@colonelh1875]

I always interpreted the text prompt as being the start of disasters, rather than the end. I never found out what gravelording was fully until today

[@LazurBeemz]

The game: "disasters are gone" The players: "disasters have begun!" ???

[@sanguillotine]

@@LazurBeemzit can be read as a tip “disaster will go away when gravelords are dead” Without any evidence there were any disasters prior to the message, one can only assume the disasters hadn’t happened yet.

[@smergthedargon8974]

I hope FromSoft one day gets to do a full in-house remake of Dark Souls 1. There's so much they wanted to do with it, if only they'd had more time.

[@yurifairy2969]

I don't want a 1:1 remake like the Demons Souls one, I want them to change whatever they want, make the Dark Souls 1 they wanted to make before deadlines hit.

[@smergthedargon8974]

@@yurifairy2969 Yes, that's what I was saying.

[@Casketkrusher_]

​@@yurifairy2969As cool as that sounds I don't think It'll ever happen, I've never seen a remake who used cut content or added in new areas or whatever from a stage in development that got cut for reasons. Ok, remakes like RE2, 3, 4 did change quite a bit but they actually removed more than adding in new stuff let alone cut content. When the Demon's Souls remake got released I had a little bit of hope they would've made a new area for the broken archstone but alas this wasn't the case either.

[@jamesbailey6257]

@@Casketkrusher_ I mean to be fair a LOT of stuff in DS1 wasn't cut because of "reasons", it's because they ran out of time and money, like they wanted to add that stuff, it wasn't cut because they had an issue with it

[@MisterRose90]

Dark souls two was the first dark souls I ever played. I found it too hard in the beginning and didn’t play it for a while. Then I bought dark souls one on a whim and I was like “yes, this. Forever. More of this forever” and then then I was hooked. DS2 still hold a place in my heart, now that I understand the game a lot more. The soft chimes of the Majula theme still makes me feel at home.

[@samehada888]

This was one of my favorite mechanics. Sad they didn't include it in 3. I heard they toyed with some type of "Eclypse" system that was suppose to be similar but it was scrapped by the end, which gave me tears. That's the one thing I wish they included in Elden Ring too. Just to randomly have you be like, wtf is happening... I think that's what originally had me addicted to Demon Souls. Most the time I finish a game and lose interests and move on but this mechanic really adds to replayability. Great video man.

[@dreadknight0]

Such a massive shame that they got rid of the different skyboxes for Dark Souls 3 and their posible mechanics. Is a shame that Elden Ring didn't bring any crazy covenant fun despite being a much bigger world and having a biggest player base pool than any souls game.

[@waltersullivan2727]

The bonfire mechanic in DS3 was mostly something they just tested on the side that didn’t go very far at all. One was for normal invasions, one was to make bonfires, and the rest were just things like stats, repairing gear, relocating estus, etc. When the ceremony was over it would disappear and things would go back to normal.

[@yurifairy2969]

​@@dreadknight0 I hope the DLC adds covenant shenanigans, even if full-on covenants are still gone

[@AK-tr6lo]

The concept of additional phantoms spawning also appears a little in Sekiro. When looking for the 3 ingredients to make the fountainhead palace fragrance extra phantoms will spawn in a few places on the last route you go down.

[@charlylmaoo5953]

You’re absolutely right, I never would have made that connection

[@AK-tr6lo]

@@charlylmaoo5953 yeah, and I even think it’s trying to fill the same design purpose as gravelording. That is the most open part of Sekiro goal wise. You are told to do three things and you can do them in any order you like. (You can clear most of senpo temple, mibu village and the gunfort before starting that quest, but you have to go pretty far out of the way to do it and I imagine most people don’t do that in their first run of the game). By the time you have 2/3 of the fragrance ingredients you’re probably slightly overpowered for the last path. Adding the phantoms shakes up that last leg to help keep the encounters from getting stale. Keeping the encounters from getting stale seems to be the purpose of gravelording and the Dark Souls II phantoms also. It would be interesting to see from software iterate on this concept.

[@Gensolink]

they tell you spirits roams ashina at night and the further you progress the later in the day it is ending at night

[@stevenseagull4990]

Huh, I always wandered why ghost ninjar Mfrs appear on the way to gun fort

[@AK-tr6lo]

@@stevenseagull4990 yup, and there are different ones in the other three paths that spawn after you have defeated the other two bosses blocking fragrance ingredients.

[@aoneko6813]

A ONE HOUR long gravelording video??? Jesus christ you've done amazing work! For someone that has always been interested in the inner workings of games, and particularly ds, this is supreme! Huge props to you, my man! Love your work!

[@tannerpickle]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Your analysis and deep dives are soooo fun to watch. You're awesome, dude. I'm glad people like you exist in the world. Thank you for all the entertainment, laughs, and information you've provided.

[@bastian_5975]

An interesting thing I've noticed: the extra enemies are often perfectly placed to force you to engage some of them on the way to the boss, which would make it almost impossible to run past everything else in the level without fighting them. Like, in anor londo, that one in the staircase cannot really be ran past, so you now cannot just run past the ones in the hall and the room without then having them follow you and punish you.

[@EdupopAgain]

I'm going to need a citation on that 150,000 basilisk number.

[@illusorywall]

lol, it's real, but I didn't actually kill any. Using debug I simulated killing batches of 10k at a time and did this 15 times. I'll have to talk about and show all that in a future video on drop rates sometime.

[@Goober543]

"erm.... source?" 🤓

[@kenetickups6146]

@@Goober543 "Wow you asked for a source on something instead of just believing you're such a loser"

[@rat4992]

@@illusorywall I would trust you with anything omg

[@illusorywall]

@@kenetickups6146 I was gonna say, it's not a bad moment to ask, especially since I knew it'd look like a weird assertion. 😅

[@adamgr6988]

King shit, illusory wall your commitment to Souls is insane and the community is a better place each time you contribute to it. I mean uh "you have a heart of gold. Don't let them take it from you".

[@Antichthoon]

I'm watching this for the fourth time now. Incredibly well done and informative! This has to be one of my favourite Dark Souls Dissected episodes. Really loving these lengthy deep dives into the game mechanics!

[@gregthespinarak]

I remember being Gravelorded while I was making my way through the Tomb of the Giants and being jumpscared by a skeleton beast at 2 in the morning, screaming, and pissing off my parents.

[@devastatheseeker9967]

I think the rat king covenant is the closest thing we got to gravelording later on but not like gravelord all that much. I hope we get that covenant back because it too was a really unique experience and is my favourite covanant

[@TheNickofTime]

40:12 I’ve experienced this error most often while trying to repeatedly join fight clubs where the population is hovering just around the six-player limit, so I bet this is what happens if you try to interact with a sign when there are no more player slots open.

[@Consumstra]

It's interesting that the frogs and tree lizards aren't black phantoms. Probably a good thing because they have some odd movesets and the tree lizards have an enormous sight range. I know because I've had some in my randomizer runs. Also as an invader you can use the trident to buff up the black phantoms even further! Blighttown could be scarier with more variety heh

[@CallN0w]

They’re already black and red! :P

[@basic_chain]

Gravelording in Elden Ring would be so sick. I've memorized 99% of all enemy layouts (at least in co-op heavy areas) and would love some variety thrown in by going online or an optional box you can check in NG+!

[@Spike2276]

Your story with Peeve is the exact reason why the mix of covenants, invasions, summon/duel signs, and PvE mobs was Fromsofts crowning jewel in designing a video game. Fromsoft managed to integrate every tool used by digital games to create scenarios that are truly emergent and unpredictable, while still bound by the predictable limitations of these tools.

[@axis8396]

I think a modified version of Spears of the Church would be really interesting since you're able to revive the boss without having to go to ng+ so you could have like a Darkmoon/Blue Sentinel type thing where the Darkmoon one takes the place of the boss and the Sentinel takes the form of a regular invader with a special color and a lesser buff. Course in practice you could have both get access to both forms of pvp but just weight them say 70/30 priority one way or the other, or have the lesser Spear replace the Painting Guardian summons. Plus you could isolate this system in ER's DLC areas/ng+ much like how you either need to get randomly summoned in the area or from the Spears covenant item that you only get from beating Midir. Even as someone who really only likes DS3 pvp having a player be a boss or like a super enemy is a really interesting idea to me. Gravelording could actually be that like you're a wandering Spear of the Church but the tradeoff is that it's like 4/5v1. Spear of the Church and the Crusaders sounds pretty good to me

[@BananaWisp]

As an old gravelord servant, thank you for the breakdown - probably one of the most comprehensive ones out there. And now it's giving me ideas for tabletop rpg stuff...~

[@Gimshooter]

The only time I was ever Gravelorded was when I was running to O and S. I saw the extra enemies and thought it was just something that happened if you betrayed the area's covenant.

[@starmangalaxy2001]

This mechanic is so cool. It's like you take the role of a dynamic miniboss for other players with your own minions along the way and everything culminating in a boss fight against you

[@twiz476]

I love all of you that dedicate your time to documenting and discovering obscure video game information

[@Asura706]

So weird how even when everyone was playing and I binged this for 3-4 years straight; I only saw black phantoms only a handful of times.

[@ce5243]

Hearing about peeve invading brings back some really nostalgic memories of fighting him many times on 360.

[@Slayer_of_Demons]

Thank you for everything you've done for this community, I've been eagerly awaiting this video

[@Lulink013]

I learned a lot from this! I used to think it was a different kind of invasion where you are brought to the victim's world along with the red enemies and must defeat them. A cool way to make that work would be to change the matchmaking level range so that you can only gravelord foes stronger than you and it would still be somewhat balanced because you'd have the area's foes and red enemies on your side.

[@mosthole]

I remember having the official guidebook when it came out and like so much of the information was completely wrong straight from the get go, I still loved reading through all the tidbits on areas and enemies, I don't fully remember much of the book but I really enjoyed how hidden shit was in this game. It's one of four games I constantly think about how cool it would be to forget everything about it and play it for the first time again. This and DS2 it just did such a good job at having a fun, interesting, and unique worlds to explore, paired with the hazy tranquil look the first game has oooweee, all the cool hidden stuff you can find, I remember all the discussions and speculation trying to figure out what the pendant did. Honestly people say the launches were bad for these games but to me the launch is the best time to play these games the way they were meant to be played. No wikis to explain everything like item locations and tricks, nobody has a meta setup to rely on, everyone doing builds on a whim, just prime shit

[@uoQNel7wc4prdywCVoWln258]

RE: Documentation of the Chaos Eaters in Lost Izalith. There's a youtuber by the name of Entropic who did a whole series on gravelording and has a video of them. I don't know how youtube will handle links, but it's EP14 about 5:00 minutes in.

[@illusorywall]

Ah crap, I completely forgot about that! I'm pretty sure I watched it back in the day. And somehow didn't manage to find it with my searching now.

[@maddestlad3868]

I miss these odd online mechanics, strange ways that players can influence eachother's game outside of invasions. I wish we had more stuff like this in Elden Ring, but they seemed intent on streamlining the experience of players in that game. I miss surprises and bizarre events, they add so much to my experience in these games. I remember seeing my first vagrant and being so confused that I died to it almost immediately. I wasn't mad, I was hyper curious. When I ran back it was gone, and I didn't know what happened. I wanted to find another one, figure out what they were. Little mysteries like this keep games alive IMO, and I wish we saw more of this.

[@thesaltypearl7163]

I remember back in the day, Gravelording in Undead Burg on the balcony near the entrance from Firelink. I kept the little fog wall there by going through the back way, so if the invaders spawned before the fog wall, they had no way of reaching me. Fun times

[@samthepigman4069]

This video just made me realize I've been gravelorded. In my first playthrough on ng, I saw a summon sign in the entrance to sen's fortress, I was confused so I pressed summon, nothing happened, and every time I respawned at the bonfire next to Andre it said "Disasters are gone after the defeat of a Gravelord Servant" I of course had no idea wtf that meant, and thought nothing of it. Thanks for informing me, random youtuber

[@Fullmetalnyuu0]

I didn't have internet when I was younger, so I played all of my games unpatched. I never really wondered about it back then, I thought the painted world just happened to have those special phantom enemies, but this explains why I saw them.

[@loli-knightxardej2252]

I don't get why From is so terrible with their restrictions. Restricting ANY form of PVP to either group targets only or needing a boss up (in either the invader or target's world) is terrible. Just leads to reduced activity. Elden Ring's PVP, for example, is a shadow of what it could be due to not allowing solo invasions.

[@colbyboucher6391]

The vast majority of players just screech about it, unfortunately. Personally I think the original Dark Souls does it best, more or less, the only change I'd make is *you don't choose to be human, it just happens.* You come into contact with humanity, it enters you like a parasite and whoopee, human again! Better get summoning. *Specifically* unpatched DS1 when humanity was actually difficult to get. The rarity of human connection is what made it special. It made co-op feel less like "cheating" (as a lot of people insist that it is) and more like a rare opportunity you need to take advantage of when you can. And since invasions are a decent way to *get* humanity, it made invasions actually came across as what NPCs suggest it is- an act of desperation.

[@fmwyt95]

considering your name and the fact that you like PvP i'm guessing you're subject to Megan's Law

[@1thevm1]

"Victim has succumbed to disasters you spread. Their savings have been deposited on your souls account."

[@SunlightBlade]

Yesss, been waiting for this 😁

[@illusorywall]

Your video was great, glad to have gotten some of it in here! ❤️

[@NotOnLand]

I'd never even heard of Gravelording until you mentioned it in a video like a year ago, so I've been waiting for this one!

[@CrzyLion]

honestly i really hope gravelording makes a comeback one day, was so much fun to be playing your 7th playthrough and suddenly having new stronger (sometimes roaming) enemies.

[@theblocksays]

Can you imagine if they attempted to try a similar "gravelording" experiment in Elden Ring, but instead like have it so that certain areas on the map while exploring will inexplicably have unusual variant type "afflicted" enemies spawn. Such as frenzied flame soldiers, blood drenched monsters, wolves and tortoises with Omen horns growing out of them and firing death rancor at you. Gotta track down the sign and kill the host who did one of those mending run endings (or burned it all down with Frenzied Flame) to end those types of enemy spawning.

[@Maldunn]

Great video. I hope Fromsoft pushes their multiplayer further in future games and doesn't shy away from weird approaches

[@shira_yone]

Something akin to Gravelording could have been perfect in Elden Ring, instead you're helping Morgott as the hands of the Fell Omen extinguishing flames of ambitions from tarnished at night. Maybe the victim will receive an item that'll let them invade the "gravelorder" or they could simply wait until dawn comes, _maybe_ only make it work in the open world outside of dungeons and the victims will be pursued by a Night's Cavalry (strength will depend on the area it spawns in). Of course the specifics will have to be more thought out, but it will actually make nights more intimidating than usual.

[@HidinginPublic]

Sekiro also includes phantoms, but they are dependent on game progress and boss order. For example the samurai spirit on the bridge after rin of the water. There's only a handful of them in the game but the mechanism was atleast somewhat played with to give sekiro an adaptive difficulty based on player choice. Like if you do monk before ape you have to fight shirafuji but not double ape, but if you fight ape first, double ape will block your path. A lot more complex and developed imo. The amount of items you receive from npcs will sometimes change as well like the number of snap seeds before the lady butterfly fight

[@grfrjiglstan]

Ever since I first heard about Gravelording, I’ve hoped I could get to see it, but I never knew about the NG+ requirement. Having an impromptu hard mode pop up seems like so much fun.

[@3Dant]

I miss the more experimental nature of Demon's Souls and the original Dark Souls. Feels like as they iterated on the formula they really just honed in on the basic gameplay mechanics and even though the following games are fun, they also seem a lot more straight forward rather than having flawed but cool ideas like tendency, the monk boss, and so on.

[@aCeruleanStateMusic]

Another fantastic video. I never really knew how Gravelording worked even after several 100 hours.

[@utes5532]

Oh man, gravelording in Sen's Fortress. Never have I received so much hate mail in a souls game

[@AntiNihilist]

I didn't know this stuff was already found out. I was hearing even around 2017 that no one knew specific gravelording mechanics. That part about the message telling you it's ended but you didn't know it began was my biggest pet peeve by far.