The PvP experience in Elden Ring can vary significantly. Especially when players can invade each other’s worlds, it can lead to interesting chases and duels. One player recently decided a duel without a fight thanks to a trick he used to imitate a bot.
In the multiplayer of Elden Ring, there are mainly two methods to fight against other players. You can either be summoned as a duelist and specifically fight against the host, or invade the world of PvP players.
- This invasion mechanic has always been typical for games developed by FromSoftware. This system was already present in Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
- Thanks to invasions, PvP in these games is often chaotic and can be frustrating. However, it is quite varied.
- This can lead to extraordinary, crazy, or absurd encounters. That is also the reason why FromSoftware games traditionally have an active online community, even years after release.
Now the community in the Elden Ring subreddit is celebrating reddit user xdc_lis. He shared a duel that he was able to win without a battle. We show you how he did it.
You can watch it in the clip here:
Player deceives opponent thanks to NPC disguise
This is how the player did it: xdc_lis used a trick that PvP veterans from Dark Souls or Bloodborne are likely already familiar with.
- First, he put on the armor of an NPC soldier, with the weapon of a sword and torch matching as well.
- Then he let a PvP player into his world.
- Now, he adapted his behavior to that of normal NPCs in the game world. He moved like one and walked along a path where these soldiers can be found.
This allowed him to deceive his opponent. In the video, you can see how his opponent runs past him several times, clearly mistaking the player for an NPC.
After the invader had searched for a while for his actual target, he gave up and returned to his game world.
The game counts this as a victory – and the winner rejoices over runes and a duel won without a fight.
Why isn’t he discovered? Normally, player names are displayed online, but in PvP this is only the case if you directly target the player.
So you cannot distinguish whether the player is an NPC or not, as long as you do not target him. Normally, online players are also displayed via a compass, but this only works if the distance is large enough.
If you are close to your co-op partner or PvP opponent, you can no longer rely on the compass. And that seems to be exactly the mistake the player made: instead of using his eyes and scanning the area for conspicuous things, he seems to have only relied on the compass.
If you do not want to be tricked like this, you should target every NPC during invasions and not rely too much on the compass. Check your surroundings carefully. Because in Elden Ring, it is worth being paranoid.
By the way: The trick works the other way around with the right talisman. You can also “transform” into an NPC as an invader and ambush the host.
If you want to know how co-op and PvP work exactly, you should take a look at our multiplayer guide.
What do other players say about it? Many are thrilled by the trick. Especially new players, who are just learning these mechanics, now want to try out such methods.
Veterans are already aware of these tricks and are now exchanging ideas with newcomers to show them other methods.
For example, they recommend the item “Imitation’s Veil” with which you can disguise yourself not just as an NPC, but even as an object.
This is somewhat reminiscent of games like Prop Hunt, where you can disguise yourself as various objects on the map while other players search for you.
Unfortunately, in Elden Ring, only 3 fixed variants are possible, while in Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne, you could even transform into region-specific, random objects.
A new speedrun is also a topic in the community: Twitch streamer completes Elden Ring in 37 minutes, reportedly the fastest speedrun in the world
