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[Kyleripman]

Not that important. Even played Demon's Souls offline to manipulate tendencies and such.

That said, I do find the PVP to be a blast when you get a fun 1v1 match. The chaos of more people than that has never appealed to me. Seems like every time I invade in DS3 I'm up against at least three people.

And jolly coop is awesome, of course.

But the meat & potatoes of Souls is the single player experience IMO.

 

[Santar]

It's just a bonus, not very important at all.
I did enjoy the bell ringing in the first Dark Souls though, just nice to know that "ahh, somebody new is starting their journey."

 

[roflwaffles]

I love co-op and invasions.

1v1 arena style PvP where people take it seriously though, is a joke.

 

[Resonance]

extremely important. I love co-op and invading

 

[LeleSocho]

0, completely irrelevant.
I don't think i've received or done an invasion/summon more than 10 times in my entire time playing Souls.

 

[Rizific]

Completely irrelevant. I have enough things trying to kill me in the game. I don't need or want to deal with invaders on top of that.

 

[Koobion]

I love the ability to coop with friends (BB and DS3) a LOT! Added so much to the games. I think the multiplayer overall is great though; you feel both threatened by, yet companionship through, other players you see!

 

[John Kowalski]

I don't actually play online but i love that you can see ghosts of other players and see their messages too. That alone adds a lot to the feeling of playing Dark Souls. It adds a sense of permanence to the world, like as if it is an ingame acknowledgment that the world isn't self contained in your TV but a kind of meta place that many people are experiencing at the same time.

 

[GIANKRATOS]

Less important as the series progressed through time tbh. I loved coop in Demon's, it wasn't very deep as in the newer games, but it was easy to do, especially with a friend. "I'll just put the sign near the stairs", 10-15 seconds and done, coop time. I couldn't even have ONE coop session in Dark Souls with a friend. It was impossible (PS3). Lots of invasions in Anor Londo tho! -.-'
Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3? Not gonna pay for mp, thanks.

 

[Redd]

Only way I play the series. Me and my friend co-oped Demon Souls using our phones to talk. From there we played the rest mostly on 360 until we played Bloodborne on PS4. Most of the time it's me and 2 other of my friends that I made all the way back when Demon Souls hit.

Take co-op out and I wouldn't play them until they were under $20 new. Fight me.....with my friends.

 

[120v]

it has the most ingenious mp this gen but i never "use" it aside from some bullshit boss here and there. i'd surely like to try my hand at invading but i can never stand toe to toe getting invaded so i figure why bother

IMO it's not integral to the "souls experience" unless you want something more, which is the case with most MP

 

[You Pay This Much]

It's basically nothing for me. I occasionally invade, and that's fun and all, but I only progress through the game on my own. No help.

 

[texhnolyze]

I'd do everything avoid it.

I block my firewall so I don't have to deal with it on PC Souls, and I don't have a PS+ sub for Bloodborne. If I need help, NPC summon is all I'd ever need.

I never get the appeal of online messages and shadows anyway, they're literally immersion breaking for me. I would never play the franchise that way.

 

[autoduelist]

Great features. I'd still play Souls regardless, but it's really nice summoning a random stranger to help me out with a boss, and I absolutely LOVE helping others explore hard areas and making sure they get everything.

Shadows and messages and all that are also great.

 

[Cat Party]

Great features. I'd still play Souls regardless, but it's really nice summoning a random stranger to help me out with a boss, and I absolutely LOVE helping others explore hard areas and making sure they get everything.

Shadows and messages and all that are also great.

Yup. It's a big part of the game for me.

 

[DaciaJC]

PvP is generally garbage because of ridiculous latency, and while the idea of coop is appealing, I usually don't engage in it beyond helping people with boss fights as certain characters (clerics, for example). So, on the whole, not really all that important, but I would be pretty disappointed if they completely ripped it out of future entries. I love reading player messages, especially.

 

[GLAMr]

Inextricable.

I can't imagine playing a Soulsborne game without it. The notes and ghosts add so much to the atmosphere, and PVP/coop for insight /vermin farming was a blast. It was such a good feeling when some punk would try to invade me and I'd wreck them with my Saw Spear. It also felt nice to drop in and help somebody take down a boss, knowing that you might have just made their day by helping them take down a boss they were stuck on.

 

[Duxxy3]

No importance at all. I play offline.

 

[Fitts]

One of the few series I actually care to play multiplayer anymore. I love it. I don't summon or invade, (unless it's for a covenant) but I love throwing my sign down and getting invaded. I know some dislike invasions, but I adore having a "pop quiz" every now and again. Some get so intense they feel like boss fights and more of those are never a bad thing.

 

[Ophiuchus]

Right now I am playing both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 and without messages this game would have been much more difficult.And I am loving every aspect of multiplayer.Sometimes it could be frustrating due to abusive players and some lag but overall multiplayer raises the gaming experience to very high levels for me.
Without it I really would not come back to Dark Souls 2 so often.Co-op and invading system is one of the reasons .

 

[MontlyCure]

Incredibly important. I don't care about the PvP aspect anymore but summoning for bosses and helping other players makes the games so much more fun to me.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Not important at all. I played all of them offline only.

 

[General Lee]

Very important, and it would definitely diminish the game to leave out all the online asynchronous features. I know a lot of people hate being invaded, and the invasion mechanic is certainly wildly unbalanced most of the time with either side having crushing superiority either in numbers or skills. It's not noob friendly at all. But if you do get into it, it's exhilarating just as any other popular competitive mp game. The freeform nature of the pvp has its problems for sure, but also presents a lot of fun scenarios. As long as you go into it with the attitude that it's not "fair" and you probably are going to die, you can have a lot of fun with the mechanics. All these online mechanics make Souls pretty unique, and there's not a lot of games that offer similar multiplayer experiences in an otherwise single player campaign.

 

[Velikost]

Essential to Dark Souls. Welcomed in Bloodborne

 

[FloatOn]

Wow this was a lot more divisive than I thought it was going to be.

 

[GHG]

The messages, bloodstains and summoning are cool but PVP... That gets old fast.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

Loved me some Rat Covenant. Depending on how I felt I'd either wait at the altar for an open battle or stand on the overlooking ledge to encourage something a little more restricted.

I spent a good few weeks just logging in and hanging out in there awaiting more people to be lured to their doom.

I'd really rather it was kept. I don't care for summoning for help but plenty do. No reason to remove some well loved features although they did a pretty good job of that by dumbing covenant down so much.

 

[Sacul64GC]

Bloodstains and messages are very Important to me. Really sucks that they are now locked behind a ps+ membership.

 

[poodaddy]

Mind bendingly low priority in my mind. I hate the multiplayer stuff, but I do enjoy the noninvasive social features like messages and what not.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

I don't know if I've ever found an invasion enjoyable. I do like summoning, but prefer NPC summons as it feels like they're part of the story.

 

[Sheroking]

PVP could go. I wouldn't miss it.

The other stuff is nice.

 

[Azriell]

Completely unimportant. I've never liked being invaded and I've never wanted to invade someone. I've beaten Demon's Souls, DS2, DS3, and BB (and played most of DS) and have never co-opped.

 

[Basketball]

Co-op is for casuals

PVP is a joke if the opponent can run and heal

message are funny sometimes
skeleton

 

[Opto]

Getting invaded is a fun wild card. If it works.

 

[ScaryShark]

Dark Souls 2 would be boring as shit without a friend.

I played everything but the chalice dungeons solo in Bloodborne and it was fantastic.

 

[Justinh]

I play in Offline mode whenever I can. If it's an older game that doesn't have an offline mode, I take my console offline before turning on the game.

I hate invasions. I hate when I'm on my way to do something and all of a sudden I need to take care of something that I don't want to do and it just feels like a huge annoyance.

Yeah, I'm a wuss. I don't care...

 

[AmethystEnd]

I literally would not care if co-op was taken out.

That said, I think the "multiplayer" systems of player messages and bloodstains need to stay. They add something even to the singleplayer experience.

 

[diablogod]

I play in Offline mode whenever I can. If it's an older game that doesn't have an offline mode, I take my console offline before turning on the game.

I hate invasions. I hate when I'm on my way to do something and all of a sudden I need to take care of something that I don't want to do and it just feels like a huge annoyance.

Yeah, I'm a wuss. I don't care...

I don't think you're a wuss. Invasions totally break my exploration and world immersion. It's a huge inconvenience. Also having a billion notes everywhere pointing out secrets or a boss door also spoil the experience for me.

 

[CAR105 3]

Very important to me. Turns the games from 50h into 300+h affairs for me. Bloodborne's MP was really disappointing and one of the reasons why I consider it worse than the Dark Souls trilogy.

This for me, it's something that gives the souks series that extra replayability.

 

[old manatee]

I don't summon anyone for co-op, but it's clearly invaluable for noobs and scrubs. I'm a big fan of the messages on the ground, because they tend to be a trap or a wild goose chase as often as they are helpful. I loved getting invaded when Dark Souls 1 came out, but nowadays it's always somebody trying to 1-shot me with some ridiculous niche pvp build. It's tedious as fuck trying to get a decent sword fight going and half the time when I was invaded in Dark Souls III I would just walk off the nearest cliff Last of the Mohicans style.

 

[Bastos]

Very important, I need to invade other players and see them despair.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

I don't summon anyone for co-op, but it's clearly invaluable for noobs and scrubs. I'm a big fan of the messages on the ground, because they tend to be a trap or a wild goose chase as often as they are helpful. I loved getting invaded when Dark Souls 1 came out, but nowadays it's always somebody trying to 1-shot me with some ridiculous niche pvp build. It's tedious as fuck trying to get a decent sword fight going and half the time when I was invaded in Dark Souls III I would just walk off the nearest cliff Last of the Mohicans style.

Fwiw some of us still like decent fights instead. I really prefer when they have a designated spot rather than just invading someone's world. I DO like OP greatsword builds but they aren't gonna one shot anyone and if anything I'm usually the one taking the first hit for expecting them to bow back.

The general world invasion stuff actually annoys me. I spent most of the games hollowed to avoid it and only kindled/used humanity when going into a boss or looking for some covenant PvP.

 

[Galactic Fork]

Well, I love the ghost mechanic of seeing other players, and I kinda like being invaded, not because I'm any good, but because it's an interesting break in standard gameplay. BUT the best thing hasn't been done since Demon's Souls. That being summoned to be another player's boss. I looooved that and wish others in the series found more novel ways like that for MP rather than clan crap.

 

[Exploding8]

Extremely important, it's what I've loved most about souls since it began back in Demons Souls. It was a completely new design for multiplayer at the time and there's not many other games that have anything quite like it. Some of my best souls memories are of co oping the Flame lurker over and over again. It always makes me a bit sad when people completely dismiss the multiplayer as for noobs or scrubs. It's such a unique system and it seems a shame to not experience it. But to each their own.

 

[LegoArmo]

It's nice, but not super important to me. I like to solo everything.

I like the messages and I've used co op when a friend wants to help me find a covenant or specific item.

 

[RetroGameAudio]

I find the online stuff incredibly important. I think it's what breathes a lot of life into the series and it's a huge component of their replay value.

Dark Souls 1 in particular tried to incorporate a lot of strange online features as well, which was part of what made it so cool and captivating to me. That there was more to it than just co-op/ PvP and messages, that you might not know if or when your game might be affected in some obtuse or surprising way by another player. That was cool as hell, and I wish it was more of a thing in later Soulsbourne games. I wrote a pretty lengthy post that's basically a love letter to those weird online features-
http://illusorywall.tumblr.com/post/120767357964/opinion-dark-souls-1-was-the-pinnacle-of

 

[Justinh]

Invasions totally break my exploration and world immersion. It's a huge inconvenience.

I can totally agree with this. I remember being like "whoa" when I first got to Anor Londo and being amazed by the scenery (and feeling so great when I got past that asshole archer on the ledge) but then I got invaded and there's some dude running around turning into a pot and backstabbing me from across the room.

 

[Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order]

I think the only worthwhile part of the multiplayer is the message function, which is excellent.

 

[Young Liar]

I love it. It's absolutely integral to the core design of what makes the games special, especially the PVP. Like a poster said earlier, invasions and coop summons enhance the single player experience.

And I say this having beaten all the games at least once without being connected online. They just feel barren and predictable, especially after beating them once. The multiplayer keeps Souls refreshing and exciting.

 

[Maedre]

I love the coop in soulsborne games. Hell, i Love it to be the PVP Boss ins the last DLC.