Is it safe to pick items in multiplayer in PC Steam?

[Raziel Lewach]

In Coop someone dropped some Knight Greatsword and I picked it up.
1) Can they give u hacked items that can corrupt your save?
2) Can those items "seem safe" but hidden be corrupted, or you can't know it? Unless it's some "unobtainable item" that I heard can make you banned, there's risk in picking a legal item?

[Lord Bob]

As a rule of thumb: never pick up candy from strangers.

[Me? Mushanga]

Originally posted by Raziel Lewach:

Can those items "seem safe" but hidden be corrupted, or you can't know it? Unless it's some "unobtainable item" that I heard can make you banned, there's risk in picking a legal item?

No.

[Lord Bob]

Originally posted by Me? Mushanga:

Originally posted by Raziel Lewach:

Can those items "seem safe" but hidden be corrupted, or you can't know it? Unless it's some "unobtainable item" that I heard can make you banned, there's risk in picking a legal item?

No.

How exactly can you be sure there isn't someone who simply changes a value in a weapon in some obscure way?

[Mandalore]

never pick up anything dropped in coop

[[Lethalvriend]]

You can't know until you pick it up, so unless you know and trust the person there is always a small risk that it is a cheater.

[StarlightAsh♡]

while more often then not it's just a person trying to be nice, it's safest to just never pick up weapons or armor dropped by anyone since it can be that one in a million cheated item which corrupts your save or gets you flagged by eac.

generally consumables are fine to pick up though, but that's obviously your own choice if you want to do that

[Takiro]

Originally posted by Lord Bob:

Originally posted by Me? Mushanga:

No.

How exactly can you be sure there isn't someone who simply changes a value in a weapon in some obscure way?

Weapon stats are determined by the files on your computer not the remote one. All the game handles is "an item with ID X is picked up with level Y and ash of war Z" and the actual stats are looked up from your own files on your system and then calculated.

I think dark souls had a remote code execution exploit but as far as I remember that didn't even needed someone to pick anything up, just join a session. For Elden Ring, so such thing is known.

[Tao314zdin]

Getting banned for picking items was not a thing for a while.

Even when it was possible it was visible if you picked a bannable item so quick bu restore could save u, although noticing invalid weapon level was not always easy. But now I don’t think it is possible.

[Mandalore]

Originally posted by Tao314zdin:

Getting banned for picking items was not a thing for a while.

Even when it was possible it was visible if you picked a bannable item so quick bu restore could save u, although noticing invalid weapon level was not always easy. But now I don’t think it is possible.

Restoring saves can also get you a ban. I got a soft ban for loading a back up save, since it was from a previous update, it was flagged. Its against the EULA.

[Burdpal]

Don't do it. People can drop items that have been datamined. If you pick those items up, that can flag your account pretty fast. People have been 180 day banned for less.

[Lord Bob]

Originally posted by Takiro:

Originally posted by Lord Bob:

How exactly can you be sure there isn't someone who simply changes a value in a weapon in some obscure way?

Weapon stats are determined by the files on your computer not the remote one. All the game handles is "an item with ID X is picked up with level Y and ash of war Z" and the actual stats are looked up from your own files on your system and then calculated.

Thanks for clarifying

Originally posted by Takiro:

I think dark souls had a remote code execution exploit but as far as I remember that didn't even needed someone to pick anything up, just join a session. For Elden Ring, so such thing is known.

That is correct, forced item injection does not seem to be a thing any longer, like it was in Ds3's Highwall where hackers would inject you with a +22 Storm Ruler. However, there have been reports of players who got their game forcibly progressed until a certain post Farum Azula spoiler event, sending them to Ashen Lyendell, when they previously only made progress until e.g. Leyndell.

No idea how this kind of hack works, though. Meaning it could be a code injection for all I know. Recently there also have been players who, after meeting other players during multiplayer, reported that their cooperators would seemingly stick to them, as in they would act as a magnet to cooperators they summoned. No matter how far their cooperator would move from them, they would be relocated to the position of the host after a short amount of time.

FromSoft needs to get their act together regarding hacks in multiplayer. This time it's even worse, as there seemingly is nothing to prevent this from happening like Blue Acolyte/Blue Sentinels mod.

[ezpz]

You're more likely to get struck by lightning than to pick up a "hacked" item, although be careful picking up weapons if you're lower level as picking up something with a high weapon level will change how you match with people (or don't match) in multiplayer.

[Takiro]

Originally posted by bioanalytical:

You're more likely to get struck by lightning than to pick up a "hacked" item, although be careful picking up weapons if you're lower level as picking up something with a high weapon level will change how you match with people (or don't match) in multiplayer.

Normally you can't pick up items that are a higher level than the highest level weapon you already own. However I think this does not apply when you play co-op with multiplayer password enabled but then you are most likely playing with a friend anyway and if you can't trust your friends than why are you friends?

[phosTR]

Originally posted by Lord Bob:

As a rule of thumb: never pick up candy from strangers.

this.

[Ironwu]

Originally posted by Raziel Lewach:

In Coop someone dropped some Knight Greatsword and I picked it up.
1) Can they give u hacked items that can corrupt your save?
2) Can those items "seem safe" but hidden be corrupted, or you can't know it? Unless it's some "unobtainable item" that I heard can make you banned, there's risk in picking a legal item?

No.