Soul Memory in Dark Souls 2 is covered on this page.
Soul Memory
What is Soul Memory for?
Soul Memory is the cumulative total of all the souls gathered on a character. In this game, it is part of the formula that sets minimum and maximum range for interactions between players online (co-op and invasions).
This is, for example, to prevent a player of a certain level that is close to the end of the game from invading/doing co-op with a player of the same level that might be still in the first areas of the game.
If you wish to play with others, you must be within a similar Soul Memory range. Higher Soul Level characters can still be paired with lower leveled characters who have similar Soul Memory ranges.
- Soul items and boss souls you pick up add to your Soul Memory only when you use them.
- You can check your Soul Memory on your Player Status screen, the top right-hand number.
- Souls picked up from your bloodstain after dying won't add up to your soul memory.
- Souls lost upon dying a second time without touching your bloodstain still count in your soul memory.
- It is better to always recover your souls on the bloodstain if you don't want to get "under(soul)leveled".
- A summoning range calculator can be found here.
Notes
- Soul Level does not matter in summoning - it is purely Soul Memory that affects it.
- NG shares the same exact ranges as NG+.
- The Soul Memory threshold flattens out at 45m. Once you pass this threshold, you can summon and be summoned by anyone else past it, regardless of how large the gap! If your SM is 50m and your friends is 400m, you can still summon each other regardless.
Soul Memory Tiers and Exact Ranges for Multiplayer Connections
Note that the specifics may be subject to change in future calibrations, but this appears to be exactly how it works for now. Tested on PS3.
How are the ranges calculated?
- Soul Memory is divided into tiers, but the tiers are not hard boundaries. Instead, different multiplayer items extend across different amounts of neighboring tiers. So there's no direct math involved, it's a question of
- A) What tier am I in? and
- B) How many tiers above and below my own can I pair up with?
- It is NOT anything like +/- 25%, 50,000, etc.
Tiers
Tier # | Soul Memory |
---|---|
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 - 999,999,999 |
Multiplayer Items
Multiplayer Item | Downward Range | Upward Range | Example |
---|---|---|---|
White Sign Soapstone | -3 Tiers | +1 Tier | Tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 17 - 21 |
White Sign Soapstone with Name-Engraved Ring |
-6 Tiers | +4 Tiers | Tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 14 - 24 |
Small White Sign Soapstone | -4 Tiers | +2 Tiers | 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 | Tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 13 - 25 |
Red Sign Soapstone | -5 Tiers | +2 Tiers | Tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 15 - 22 |
Dragon Eye | -5 Tiers | +5 Tiers | Tier 20 can send their sign to a host in tiers 15 - 25 |
Cracked Red Eye Orb | none | +4 Tiers | Tier 20 can invade a host in tiers 20 - 24 |
Cracked Blue Eye Orb | -3 Tiers | +3 Tiers | Tier 20 can invade a host in tiers 17 - 23 |
Bell Keeper's Seal | -1 Tier | +3 Tiers | Tier 20 can invade a host in tiers 19 - 23 |
Untested
- Abyss Invasions
- Mirror Knight Summons
- Tested by Hirokisugihara & Illusorywall
- All credits go to illusorywall & optic_niko, hellkite_drake, ein death, hiroki sugihara, greensvadhisthana, eur0pa, blade, and necroi!
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
18 Dec 2020 06:03
Wow. Looking thru these comments is like watching a war playout. Can confirm that the dark chasm invasions go atleast 6 tiers up. Did some at tier 26 (1mil) & got a dude at tier 32 (2mil) mirror squire invasions seem to be based off of cracked red eye ranges but im still not sure.
03 Dec 2020 17:22
Soul Memory brought more balance and fairness to the game. Dark Souls 2 punishes you for having wasted your souls on consumables (remember that in Dark Souls 1 there was no such a thing as Lifegems).
- Anonymous
28 Nov 2020 02:51
imagine making a mechanic so god awful that you needed to add a new item to fix it thus making the mechanic irrelevant because now players can just use said item to bypass this and Harass as many new players as they want
- Anonymous
28 Nov 2020 02:45
what's that ran out of life gems but are on meta sm welp sucks to be you guess you don't get to have anymore gems or else you're gunna get pushed out of your level have fun
- Anonymous
13 Nov 2020 20:48
Da due giorni a questa parte non riesci più a giocare in co-op con un altra persona, il mio lvl corrisponde a 98 mentre l'altra persona è al 100. So che ci sono determinate zone in cui non è possibile fare evocazioni, ma visto che la differenza di lvl è minima, perché non riesco ad evocare o ad essere evocato? E'la prima run
- Anonymous
03 Nov 2020 21:52
This mechanic is really good and FromSoft should add it into DS3. It really balances players beyond the character level. If you want to keep certain tier just buy the Agape Ring from straid
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
02 Sep 2020 18:13
i wish there was only 4 tiers that would be nice and that you could only summon one tier lower or higher
- Anonymous
02 Sep 2020 18:12
i used to think that you have to be in the same tier as the person you want to play with but when i use the name engraved ring i can go up to 6 tiers down so it works for me
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
14 Jul 2020 14:18
this is legit the worst mechanic to exist in a souls game. they shoulda just made it level based and added the password system.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
18 Jun 2020 04:54
My friend and I just partied together like an hour ago fine (I summoned him). Now we're doing the exact same thing, in the exact same spot, and in the exact same way, and his sign isn't shown up. Neither of us advanced tiers with the last boss, so we should still be good (there's actually a tier to spare, so we should be fine). Any known issues or bugs that mess this up?
- Anonymous
31 May 2020 13:08
At the end of the day, just be glad they'll never implement this system in a future soulsborne game
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
16 May 2020 17:10
I've farmed a lot of souls to upgrade a lot of weapons cause i like the swapping, now i'm underleveled :D
- Anonymous
13 May 2020 05:51
Im using the ring that absorbs souls currently at SM7 and I just beat the Sinner, I'm trying to get top tier gear to drop for newbies in the cathedral. I guess helping fresh characters is a benefit to SM in a way, Souls games always did encourage some of that jolly cooperation.
- Anonymous
30 Apr 2020 05:12
If I see blood stains, does that mean they are within my summoning range or is there no limit to the range of blood stains?
- Anonymous
22 Apr 2020 13:01
So If i cheated and got lv 839 while my soul memory is still tier 1 means i ll get easy pvp?
- Anonymous
26 Jan 2020 09:20
You'd be surprised at how many new players there are on this game on xnox1. like, brand new. - currently on my sl25 tier 4 char with agape and the GreatSword (ultra) and a +5bandit axe that i created shortly after agape was added. got all the max tier rings that i want too. - just helping people wreck the bosses at the start and every now and then wreck a couple of hosts X'D
14 Jan 2021 02:28
Neat idea, executed poorly.
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