Elden Ring’s invasion mechanic is a carry-over from pervious FromSoftware titles and allows invaders to enter the games of other players to engage in PvP. There is a huge element ofElden Ring’s player base that is dedicated to this aspect of the game, although many players may never engage with it or even find the in-game item required to perform an invasion. The host of an invasion is chosen indiscriminately from players currently in the same area, so invaders never know who they are about to invade.
PvP is the only purpose ofElden Ring’s invasion mechanic, so hosts have no reason to trust a random player that has just invaded them. However, many players do use the invasion mechanic for other reasons, such as bizarre jokes, ortrying out unusualElden RingPvP tactics.
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It is surprising then, for a game so famously brutal, that astrangely polite etiquette amongElden RingPvP playersis often observed. Before a PvP fight begins, the players involved will usually stand a few meters apart and throw a well-meaning gesture of greeting to the other. Despite invaders only having the one goal of killing the host, a trust can quickly be formed with an invader when they don’t immediately act on this goal. Now a Reddit user named GizzaCuppaTay has been testing the trust of their fellow Tarnished by invading 100 players to see what percentage would attack them on sight.
The Reddit user’s method for these invasions was to make a character named “sit for a moment,” who would use the Rest gesture upon invading another player. When the host players found the invader, they would be confronted with an unexpected moral choice of either accepting this questionably trustworthy invader’s offer to rest with them a moment, or to kill them outright and get back to playing the game. According to GizzaCuppaTay, 29 players out of 100 accepted the offer to sit for a moment, which goes to show thestrange trust that can quickly form betweenElden Ring’s invaders and hosts.
Despite over two thirds of these players choosing to kill the invader outright, 29 trusting hosts is still a surprisingly wholesome number of players that were confronted with an enemy and chose not to attack immediately. This is especially the case since most enemies inElden Ringwill attack the player relentlessly on sight, thoughsomeElden Ringenemies are still more annoying than others. The Reddit user also shared a few screenshots of host players that took up the offer, with most of them still sitting a cautious distance from the invader.
When an invader does something unique or unusual inElden Ring,it can be tempting to go along with them. But many players that get invaded are simply trying to summon a co-op partner, so it is understandable when they would prefer remove the invader as quickly as possible rather than humor their bizarre request.
Elden Ringis available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
