What is SOUL MEMORY and why is it important for MULTIPLAYER

Everything you need to know about how this games multiplayer component works

What is Soul Memory and why is it a thing

Soul Memory is the total number of souls you have collected on your journey and does not change by buying stuff or losing your souls upon death. NOTE that picking up your souls from your soulstain DOES NOT ADD TO YOUR SOUL MEMORY.

Soul Memory (usually shortened to SM by the community) was an attempt by this game's developers to prevent people with end-game gear invading people that are just starting out by binding people to tiers based on their Soul Memory. The intention was good but its execution horribly flawed as it seperates more people than helps them reach eachother. It was worse when they added the Agape Ring: a ring that prevents you from gaining any souls while equiped that can be bought early in the game.

Where to find Soul Memory

You can see your Soul Memory in your characters status screen. It's the number in the top right corner. See picture for more accuracy.

What are the Soul Memory Tiers?

Now there are exactly 45 tiers that you can be in. Here is the list with help from http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/.

Soul Memory tiers:
[1] 0 - 9,999
[2] 10,000 - 19,999
[3] 20,000 - 29,999
[4] 30,000 - 39,999
[5] 40,000 - 49,999
[6] 50,000 - 69,999
[7] 70,000 - 89,999
[8] 90,000 - 109,999
[9] 110,000 - 129,999
[10] 130,000 - 149,999
[11] 150,000 - 179,999
[12] 180,000 - 209,999
[13] 210,000 - 239,999
[14] 240,000 - 269,999
[15] 270,000 - 299,999
[16] 300,000 - 349,999
[17] 350,000 - 399,999
[18] 400,000 - 449,999
[19] 450,000 - 499,999
[20] 500,000 - 599,999
[21] 600,000 - 699,999
[22] 700,000 - 799,999
[23] 800,000 - 899,999
[24] 900,000 - 999,999
[25] 1,000,000 - 1,099,999
[26] 1,100,000 - 1,199,999
[27] 1,200,000 - 1,299,999
[28] 1,300,000 - 1,399,999
[29] 1,400,000 - 1,499,999
[30] 1,500,000 - 1,749,999
[31] 1,750,000 - 1,999,999
[32] 2,000,000 - 2,249,999
[33] 2,250,000 - 2,499,999
[34] 2,500,000 - 2,749,999
[35] 2,750,000 - 2,999,999
[36] 3,000,000 - 4,999,999
[37] 5,000,000 - 6,999,999
[38] 7,000,000 - 8,999,999
[39] 9,000,000 - 11,999,999
[40] 12,000,000 - 14,999,999
[41] 15,000,000 - 19,999,999
[42] 20,000,000 - 29,999,999
[43] 30,000,000 - 44,999,999
[44] 45,000,000 - 359,999,999
[45] 360,000,000 - 999,999,999

How do the tiers impact the multiplayer items?

Now there are a couple of items that let you co-op or invade. Here is the list of those items and how Soul Memory influances them

• White Sign Soapstone |-3 Tiers +1 Tier|
  Player at tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 17 - 21
  
  
• White Sign Soapstone with Name-Engraved Ring |-6 Tiers +4 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 14 - 24
  
  
• Small White Sign Soapstone |-4 Tiers +2 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 16 - 22
  
  
• Small White Sign Soapstone with Name-Engraved Ring |-7 Tiers +5 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 13 - 25
  
  
• Red Sign Soapstone |-5 Tiers +2 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 15 - 22
  
  
• Dragon Eye |-5 Tiers +5 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 15 - 25
  
  
• Cracked Red Eye Orb |-0 Tiers +4 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can invade a host in tiers 20 - 24
  
  
• Cracked Blue Eye Orb |-3 Tiers +3 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can invade a host in tiers 17 - 23
  
  
• Bell Keeper's Seal |-1 Tier +3 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can invade a host in tiers 19 - 23
  
  
• Crest of the Rat |-1 Tiers +3 Tiers|
  Host at tier 20 can summon a phantom from tiers 19 - 23
  
  
• Guardian's Seal |-5 Tiers +4 Tiers|
  Player at tier 20 can be summoned by a host in tiers 15 - 24

Again, thanks to wikidot for the information to be copy/pasted from.

[SLeASvHEeRr]

@Artek [General]: true, I help as phantom a lot to earn souls so I can buy most items for NG+... playthrough and I also spam lifegems. I spent like 1,5kk souls not on leveling up

[Sevithr]

Ok cool, il keep that in mind then :) I guess that explains why i couldn't get a person to invade me when i was spaming token of spite at a sm of 30000 XD

[Captain Striker (Empo)]

@SevLovesToDropBear: I have actually tested it and it is definately same tier and up. Mind you, especially when it comes to twinks and pvp, it requires you to manage you souls and sm more than casual players that might die and lose their souls more often than you, resulting in bigger difference in SL and less optimized gear. Mind you, the weapons and stats can result very quickly in 1 and 2 shot kills with good skills and soul management as seen with Soul Greatsword and normal Greatsword early game.

[Sevithr]

i find that the infomation on the ds2 wiki can't seem to make up its mind. one page tells you it invades people with higher soul memory. but another page tells you it invades people with less soul memory.. i would like to believe it invades people with less soul memory, because most of the time, im invadeing people with way less strength then me. even on a twink char, it feels like im invading people with tier 1 soul memory.. that's my observation on it tho, so i could be completely wrong.

[Dominalen]

It is not okay.

[richardtu1]

that's good

[Artek [General]]

You probaably should explain why exactly the Soul Memory is so bad: because it doesn't care what you do with your souls.

Since soul memory is all matchmaking cares about, it absolutely does not care for actual power differences between the players. Even more so, it doesn't care at all for how the souls were spent.
Broken weapon repairs, resource purchases, souls lost due to dying with a bloodstain out.
All those souls still count towards your SM, even though they are technically were not used to increase your actual power.

Basically, it punishes the player in PvP terms in the long run, since souls that were spent on trivial maters are now souls that your PvP-focused invader spent on actually increasing his power.

For example, i'm pretty sure i spent last 500k souls purely on purchases of boss weaapons for my collection. Those are now 500k souls of difference with a dedicated PvP player that he used to do something productive with his character. For example 20 more levels.

[Makys182]

okay, thanks, this helped.

[kuccy]

Cool guide. Thanks

[Captain Striker (Empo)]

Same here. There are many ways where sm wouldnt be much of a problem and still work to deter twinking. But alas, its bridge under the water and we are stuck with it unless there is a remaster with password system so we can just mule fully upgraded stuff to a lower tier char like before agape ring.