Auto-Summon Covenants Fix

[Pars]

HALF-BROKEN AS OF THE NEW UPDATE

"Save transferring between accounts has been broken. Works for some people, doesn't work for some, could be character number related."

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/4nhgue/app_105_regulation_108_changes_megathread/

ταΗα.TDA a écrit :

FYI, the reason it does not work for "some" is related to the patch version you are currently using and the patch version your main character was made in. In other words, if you made your main character on 1.02/1.04 and you are trying this method using the current patch regulation 1.05/1.08 then it will 'fail to load save data.

Getting the Covenants to Work

1) Create a family sharing account. [Look Below for Instructions]

2) Transfer your character save over to the new account. [Look Below for Instructions]

3) Bask in the glory of working auto-summon covenants.

4) Transfer the save back to your main account if you only did it to farm items.

After experimenting with a friend by creating identical characters and identical stats, I determined it is definitely an issue with an account that breaks the auto-summon covenants as he was getting endless invasions and I was getting nothing.

Therefore, I tried playing on another account using the same character and I miraculously got endless invasions with every auto-summon covenant that was never working.

This solution is aimed towards those that need the items for rewards and achievements as you can transfer your save back and forth, but if all you want is to have fun with these covenants you can stay on the alternate account.

This is just until From decides to do something to fix these issues.

Creating a Family Share Account

1) While on your main account, enable the sharing feature via Settings > Family where you'll also authorize specific computers and users to share.

2) Create a second account and log into this account on the same computer, where it should then show all the games that are currently installed on the PC in the library.

3) Log back into your main account and in the family tab again, add the new account on family sharing.

4) Log into your new account and you should now have access to all/most of your main Steam account's library.

Transferring Characters

I made a quick video on transferring characters, it may move too fast so please pause along the way if you need to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igy4k-rFqSs

Here are the steps to transferring:

1) Back up the original save file and keep a note of the folder name of your original account. The common location is "[User]\AppData\Roaming\DarkSoulsIII"

2) Start the game up on the family share account and create a new character. The options during creation do not matter.

3) Quit to main menu and go to load game.

4) Before selecting your new character, replace the save file in the new save folder with the one that you backed up before.

5) Select the new character and it will load the character that is in the first slot of your original save.

6) If you would like to transfer the new save back to your original account, repeat these same steps except for your main account.

For multiple characters, you will have to create the same number of characters as there are in your original save file and repeat steps 4 and 5 for each different slot.

KEEP IN MIND: Deleted characters are taken into account. You will have to make the total amount of slots in your original save INCLUDING those that you deleted.

Meaning: If your first character was deleted and you made another one in its stead, you will have to make 2 new characters on your second account where the first one will be your deleted character and the second one will be your current character. This is a good method for getting deleted characters back as well.

Solutions We've Tried Regarding This Issue

1) Completely wiping all data related to the game, including the folder in Appdata/Roaming, and reinstalling.

Results: Not Working

2) Transferring the NEW save made on the NEW account back to the ORIGINAL account and using the new character instead.

Results: Not Working

3) Wiping all DS2 related data including saves.

Results: Not Working
Comments: There are people experiencing this issue that have never owned Dark Souls 2, so anything related to that game is not relevant to the issues we are experiencing in this game.

Other Issues/Bugs

Important

Before digging any further, something as simple as having the Cross-Region Matchmaking set to off could possibly be causing the rarity of invasions you are experiencing. As unlikely as it may seem, it has helped some people out so try enabling this option before proceeding.

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There are currently a number of very helpful and comprehensive threads which are very well put together that can help explain some of the issues and bugs that persist with matchmaking and the servers in general, much better than I ever could.

Rainz has put a lot of effort into creating a very helpful thread that could possibly answer why you still might not be getting any invasions or online activity even after this fix. You can find it here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/374320/discussions/0/357284767256562140/

A similar thread can also be found here which contains very useful information:
https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/4hzb7p/matchmaking_server_bug_possible_caching_issue/

These threads are also data collection threads so please follow the guidelines and post information regarding the issues you're experiencing in both threads if you are able to. It would be a huge help.

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There are many variables that come into play when it comes to invasions, and everyone should definitely be aware of these variables. Soul Level is an especially important variable that shouldn't be overlooked when attempting the solution. At SL 120 with +10 weapons, I get a myriad of invasions at very popular spots. I can't guarantee the same success for those that are in the upper-region that not as many people might be in.

This brings us to the next variable: the location. Are you attempting to invade in an area that's farther away from your covenant (Aldrich, Watchdogs) or just not very populated in general? I've found that 9 out of 10 times that I have my Darkmoon item on, I always invade in the area that I'm in because it's a very popular area whereas if I'm at a not-so-populated area I get taken to another area that's more populated.

Lastly, the time that one attempts their invasion is very important. If it's extremely late at night crossing into the early hours of the morning, there are significantly less people playing than during normal hours.

Safety

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT CONCERNING SAFETY

After almost a week of using this solution, the lack of reports in the thread about being softbanned as well the lack of my own has led me to believe that this solution is completely safe.

The Invalid Data message tends to appear after a patch or an update based on what I've observed in the Platform thread, and there is still yet to be one for me after today's new patch. I don't believe there are any risks to using this solution after the time that has passed and the results that have followed.

My theory on why the solution carries a relatively low risk is because the way that covenant items are obtained through this method is very similar to one going into offline mode on Steam and farming the covenants through NPCs in terms of how the save is read by the game. You are essentially using the same exact character just with covenant items/rewards that could all be obtained through the use of offline mode, and so my thoughts are that the game should be reading it as such without flagging it for Invalid Data. Those that absolutely want to take no risk should wait a little bit longer until I or others report that it's definitely safe.

DISCLAIMER: I can't guarantee that this is information will remain actual through any future implemented patches that will restrict the use of this method. However, by then I'll suspect they would've fixed this issue and removed the need to use this fix.

[Yian Yan]

What about an account interacts with the matchmaking to break it, though? Not questioning your results or whether this works or doesn't but... Why?

[Pars]

Yian Yan a écrit :

What about an account interacts with the matchmaking to break it, though? Not questioning your results or whether this works or doesn't but... Why?

I'm very curious about this as well and I've been trying to gather possible factors that could cause this issue. I'll report anything I find after experimenting further with this.

[IlluminaZero]

If this is true that is great news. I am not referring to using this but that the community seems to be so effectively debugging it for FROM.

FROM really needs to acknowledge that there is something fundementally broken about these covenants even if they do not have an immediate answer to the problem. There is something terribly wrong when so much of the community is wasting days farming Silver Knights as a work around for these busted covenants.

Thanks for sharing ERROR.

[Pars]

illuminazero a écrit :

If this is true that is great news. I am not referring to using this but that the community seems to be so effectively debugging it for FROM.

FROM really needs to acknowledge that there is something fundementally broken about these covenants even if they do not have an immediate answer to the problem. There is something terribly wrong when so much of the community is wasting days farming Silver Knights as a work around for these busted covenants.

Thanks for sharing ERROR.

It's really no problem

All I ask is for everyone who decides to try this to come back and report whether or not it worked for them as well. Also so that this thread can help out more people that suffer from the same issue.

I'll continue to post here as I find out more about this.

[Ace]

Confirming this for a friend of mine.
Almost instant summon after doing so.

We will see if it was just coincidence.

But transfering save files is not as easy as in DS1 and DS2 when you have multiple characters.

[Ace]

Second summon.
Guess this is confirmed

EDIT: Even more summons.

[Pars]

Ace a écrit :

Second summon.
Guess this is confirmed

EDIT: Even more summons.

Thanks for coming back and posting Ace. It's definitely not as easy as DS2 but it is doable, just a bit more tedious.

I'm going to spend the night testing on the alternate and hopefully I get lucky and break the covenants.

[76561198300314389]

How did you transfer the save file? I cant get it to work.

[Pars]

eilrwwnx a écrit :

How did you transfer the save file? I cant get it to work.

Here are the steps to transferring:

1) Back up the original save file and keep a note of the folder name of your original account.

2) Start the game up on the family share account and create a new character. The options during creation do not matter.

3) Quit to main menu and go to load game.

4) Before selecting your new character, replace the save file in the new save folder with the one that you backed up before.

5) Select the new character and it will load the character that is in the first slot of your original save.

For multiple characters, you will have to create the same number of characters as there are in your original save file and repeat steps 4 and 5 for each different slot.

I'll update the original post with this as well.

[Kapten Teo]

Thanks for the tip. :)

[Adol]

IT WORKS IT WORKS HOLY GOD. This is amazing. In over 130 hours of playing this not ONE single summon as Blue Sentinel or Darkmoon and within 5 mins of playing with a family shared account I am getting summons out of my ass. Thank you so much for this thread.

[Adol]

This needs to be stickied right now. This is THE workaround to people not ever being summoned as a blue phantom.

[TheBlueFox]

So, let me get this straight.

The current system of auto summons works thusly:
Each account is put on a STACK (First in, Last out) type of deal, wherein summons get prioritized to NEW accounts, while older accounts essentially stagnate at the bottom.

Saving your CHARACTER, but transfering it to a new account, in this case a family shared account, places you at the upper end of the stack, giving you prioity matchmaking.

This requires you to have a second account though, correct?

[Adol]

TheBlueFox a écrit :

So, let me get this straight.

The current system of auto summons works thusly:
Each account is put on a STACK (First in, Last out) type of deal, wherein summons get prioritized to NEW accounts, while older accounts essentially stagnate at the bottom.

Saving your CHARACTER, but transfering it to a new account, in this case a family shared account, places you at the upper end of the stack, giving you prioity matchmaking.

This requires you to have a second account though, correct?

You do need a second account, but it took me all of one minute to set one up. I somehow get the feeling we have all been wrong about the autosummon queues after having done this workaround and finding it works straight away. It just seems to be a problem with some Steam user accounts. It's as if I was being blocked from being summoned as a blue phantom on my main account, but as soon as I made another it was fine and working as it should be.

[Pars]

TheBlueFox a écrit :

So, let me get this straight.

The current system of auto summons works thusly:
Each account is put on a STACK (First in, Last out) type of deal, wherein summons get prioritized to NEW accounts, while older accounts essentially stagnate at the bottom.

Saving your CHARACTER, but transfering it to a new account, in this case a family shared account, places you at the upper end of the stack, giving you prioity matchmaking.

This requires you to have a second account though, correct?

I've never been completely sure about the prioritization and the "stack" that accounts/characters are put into, but I am sure now that there are certain factors about an account that triggers the broken covenants.

I've been testing out all the ones that I've thought of but I still haven't found anything concrete. I am going to keep testing though.

Adol a écrit :

IT WORKS IT WORKS HOLY GOD. This is amazing. In over 130 hours of playing this not ONE single summon as Blue Sentinel or Darkmoon and within 5 mins of playing with a family shared account I am getting summons out of my ass. Thank you so much for this thread.

I'm very glad it's working for you! While I'm upset that you and others couldn't just get these covenants working right off the bat without creating a second account, I'm happy that people will get to experience the parts of the game they've been unjustly left out of.

Having this stickied or at least kept on the front page would be very helpful to those experiencing this issue and would like to try a solution.