Hey guys, just wanted to post a warning that I was alerted to. There's a player known as Malcolm Reynolds who is invading players in Dark Souls 3 with a hacked weapon that will softban your character! When struck with it, it kicks you to firelink, gives you souls as well as many other weird effects which the game detects as an illegal modification to your character. There's a way to load characters from a save backup, but right now, it's easiest to just play offline until this gets resolved. What a mess this game's online turned out to be.

More info: https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/4h4z6q/psa_if_you_get_invaded_by_malcolm_reynolds/

What is the point of this?

@sterling: The guy claims he's doing it to expose the exploit in the anti-cheat system. In reality, he's done this in every souls game, from what I can tell. He's just a dick being a dick.

Seems like he's summoning invaders right and not invading other games? Or would it work either way. I've only been invaded once, but i'm almost never embered because I find it annoying to do all the time.

Anybody playing on PC, go to (User)/AppData/Roaming/DarkSoulsIII and create a backup of your save.

If you ever suspect that you have played with a cheater, immediately restore your save to a previous version.

If you ever receive a notification about Invalid Game Data, either delete the character or restore your save to a previous version.

And this is why I won't be buying Dark Souls 3 on PC.

I can't believe how many people are supporting him in doing this.

Man, that sort of shit is so fucking rad. Some internet dude hits you with a fucking sword that makes your game all wonky.

What a piece of shit. I heard this was the same guy running around Majula killing peoples' NPCs back in Dark Souls 2.

We all knew this was coming when the false flags started showing up. I'm just glad I'm done with my covenant turn-ins so I can lay low for awhile.

Important note: You cannot be softbanned immediately. Hacked debuffs applied by another player can flag you for Invalid Game Data, which would put you at risk of being softbanned, but you're still able to remove affected data by restoring a previous save file. In the meantime, I'd steer clear of high traffic PvP areas like the Road of Sacrifices or anywhere near the Pontiff bonfire, and avoid picking up any player dropped items. If you want to be embered for things like NPC invasions I'd just play offline.

What's sadder than the actual griefing is the shitstorm it has rekindled between console and PC players, all the while littered with totally unrelated racism and bigotry. Stay classy, Souls community!

This is so Dark Souls.

This is yet another reason why I enjoy console gaming over PC the hoops you have to go through to cheat like this are way bigger.

I was planning to play the game offline when I finish downloading it tonight anyway. I'm glad there's the option now. The multiplayer always has exploits, unintended variables and silliness. People suck. I wish From focused on the single player only.

I do not condone this guy's actions and hope he gets shut down and the exploit fixed.

However, I did catch a bit of the stream and couldn't help but chuckle at the brilliance of the loophole he found.

@rafaelfc: The loophole he found when he downloaded a trainer or Cheat Engine table someone else made so he can warp around the map, become invisible, and do all kinds of other crazy stuff?

Seems bizarre that From is softbanning other players but they can't permaban this idiot in like 2 seconds...?

That's nuts but not unexpected. I haven't run into any hackers in any of the Souls games so I think my luck might be running out. Not sure how safe I am while using the GB password, but I'm hoping safe enough.

Calling these people "Hackers" is an insult to actual hackers. The term for these knob ends is "script kiddies". Guys that type "Dark Souls 3 trainers/cheat engine" into google and click a few links to download shit other actual coders made.

That seems a bit like never going outside because you're worried about being struck by lightning.

This is one of the reasons why I avoid PC games.

I'm not afraid. I haven't got a hacker, let alone this specific guy as an invader. I mean what are the chances?

@theht: Despite the effect it actually has on the victim in game, I have to agree. It reminds me of those urban legends I would hear about WoW in its infancy that some dude hacked his way into the player database and tied that to player mortality, meaning that if you died in PvP by his hand, your file was deleted from the server.

Was any of that actually true? I've never played a second of WoW in my life. The point is, THIS is the super-hacking shit I wanted to see as a kid. Some dude using a weapon version of D-Reaper from Digimon and pulling some SAO bullshit on you. That said, I sure am glad I'm not playing this on PC.

@ezekiel: I played the whole thing offline due to not having a PlayStation Plus subscription and it's fine. There are even developer messages at certain points out in the world so you're not missing out on that information.

I've played 50 hours of this game on PC with a lot of co-op and PvP and haven't encountered a single hacker. Either I'm lucky or they're just not as prevalent. But this fucker needs a good solid steam ban.

@mike said:

Yup. When it comes to Souls on PC, I play like a bitch who hasn't gitted gud and I accept that about myself. I don't care if the lightning comes with Louis Vuitton handbags. I'm not a very competitive person to begin with, and I definitely don't want to be up against someone who's using Cheat Engine or whatever to gain an unfair advantage or do some weird shit like what Reynolds is doing. With that said, I know that spontaneous PvP has been a thing since Demon's and I'm totally fine with it and didn't disconnect my PS3 when playing that and Dark 1. I just rather fight the good guy Kurt Cobains out there who are tough but fair since Souls PvP on consoles is the more equal playing field.

@facelessvixen: I suppose it's more equal in the sense that there ARE some cheats on PC, but I think if you polled all of the Dark Souls III players here, hardly any of them would have ever encountered any kind of hacker. That has been the comment I've seen time and time again any time cheats on PC have been brought up in any topic on Giant Bomb, and that's been my experience as well.

@mike: True, and I'm actually thinking about what the odds of running into a cheater actually are and that comments and posts on the subject can exacerbate those numbers along with the whole "prepare to die" mantra. So my preference to either play offline or mostly stay dead ultimately boils down to me not being an aggressive/passionate Souls player. To those that are, more power to 'em.

What if this guy works for FromSoft and this is an intended system in the game?

And I thought getting cursed in DaS 1 or getting de-leveled in DeS was extreme...

@mike: I ran into a hacker a few days ago but thankfully he just used it to kill me so i dont really mind, a death in Dark souls more or less dont matter :)

The guy just ran around in a frozen T pose and was invincible for a while and then when he got bored he oneshotted me with something that looked like a thousand needles attack from an Final fantasy cactuar. I was at full HP and had my shield up but i just instantly died so thats that i guess. His name was Benny.

What's the soul level on this guy? What range is at risk?

At this point I'm curious what causes people to not be able to go through boss fog gates. I've both been the guilty party and been victim of it in several encounters. It's the worst when you're host because the boss HP doubles or whatever they do when you summon help, but when the people you summoned eventually give up and return to their world it's not like the boss reverts to "single attacker" mode, for obvious reasons, so you're stuck with a buffed boss encounter all on your lonesome.