Game Systems

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Bonfires
Bonfires refill estus flasks, allow for fast travel to all bonfires, and allow the burning of three items: Bonfires can also be used to light torches. Press Triangle near bonfire to toggle between rest, and light torch options. Some orange signs indicate it may be advantageous to light the standing torches found across various areas.
 * Human effigy - prevents online play
 * Sublime Bone Dust - +1 to estus flasks
 * Unknown third item

Combat
Parrying, upon a successful parry a proper riposte can be triggered by hitting R1 at the right time.

Humanity
Humanity is gained by using a Human Effigy outside of the bonfire system. Burning a human effigy at a bonfire system may have the opposite effect that players used to Dark Souls 1 may expect as it appears to allow for play uninterrupted by online interactions.

There is no longer any humanity levels system. Instead the humanity counter has been replaced by an icon that seems to change with the covenant of the player.

Humanity also may have been gained once during a successful coop bossfight as a phantom. The regular white soapstone and a Token of Fidelity were both used in the encounter. It is also entirely possible I had retained humanity from a previous effigy.

This has been repeated on a few occasions, however it appears to have nothing to do with using a Token of Fidelity.

Dual Wielding
Much noise has been made about dual wielding. I (PraisetheBeard) have found limited success in using it outside the earliest parts of the game. The most success I've had is using the quick dagger to interrupt weak opponents attacks before slicing them up quickly. It may be possible that combinations of elemental or property weapons may be lethal (Poison and bleed combination) but I've yet to acquire many property/elemental based weapons.

Soul Memory
In the character status start menu screen, the total accumulated souls are displayed, this is known as Soul Memory. Unsure what the purpose is. When using the help button it says "Souls that once dwelled within the flesh will always remain in memory. Could this be a blessing? Or a curse?" A bit cryptic... so here are my theories (PB):
 * Upon acquiring a certain amount of souls, the player is granted some special item or a special event occurs.
 * Soul memory, like soul level, is used in multiplayer calculations. FromSoftware made statements about making the game more accessible. By attaching Soul Memory to multiplayer encounters, they may have in essence leveled the playing field for SL 1 characters with upgraded equipment would no longer be able to pummel new players with starting gear.
 * Much like the total death counter found near the crestfallen soldier, there is no purpose other than to simply have a counter. However, since death is a driving part of the game and there is a cryptic message along with it, this seems less likely than the other two.

Hex Spells
Not encountered yet, but messages in the loading screen have provided some information. There are new hex spells in Dark Souls 2, one loading screen implied that they are part sorcery part faith. Might be extra spells that can be used by both sorcery and faith builds.

Online Play
There are two coop items, small white soapstone and a regular white soapstone.

The small white soapstone has a limited time duration, if the phantom and host survive long enough the phantom is booted out with a duty fulfilled notification and receives a smooth and silky stone as a reward.

The White Soapstone is also on a timed duration. The reward for a successful assist here is a Token of Fidelity

The Token of Fidelity is used in online play by the phantom to heal the host. Also seems to be of some importance to the Blue Sentinel covenant. Token of Fidelity is also used to fight in the sparring area in the Cathedral of Blue.

THERE IS NO ORANGE SOAPSTONE ITEM. Messages are left through the message system from the start menu.

The name engraved ring alters online play pretty radically it appears, although just how much is uncertain. Here is what has been experienced so far in attempting known friendly jolly cooperation between PraisetheBeard and UseanElixir.


 * Due to high amount of traffic I was having difficulty summoning UE, he kept instantly getting summoned by other players before his sign would appear in my world. Upon equiping the name engraved ring while human, ALL of the random summon signs near the Hiede's Tower of Flame disappeared, instantly. When the ring was then removed, multiple summon signs for random people again showed up. Repeating this equiping and removing yielded the same result. Upon both players equipping the ring the wanted summon signed appeared instantly where no other signs were noticable.