How do I maximize my chances of being summoned in Blades of the Darkmoon/Blue Sentinels?

Question

I've seen the subject of covenant auto-summons being discussed on multiple different forums. From the threads that I've read, I gathered that the community has agreed upon an ideal location, maximum weapon upgrade, and level range to be summoned for Watchdogs of Farron. However, I can't seem to find a similar consensus when it comes to ideal summon criteria for Blades of Darkmoon or the Blue Sentinels.

Is there a generally agreed-upon ideal location, maximum weapon upgrade, and/or level range for being summoned in either Blades of the Darkmoon or the Blue Sentinels? Are there other criteria that need to be met that I haven't mentioned (besides having the covenant item equipped, of course)? It took me 45 minutes to get one Proof of a Concord Kept by farming silver knights, and the idea of spending 20-ish hours to get the other 27 I need is not very appealing.

Answer 1

It's not just you, a lot of people have been having issues getting summoned as a Darkmooon or Blue Sentinels, and folks are pretty confident it's a bug, despite FROM saying otherwise. The good news is that there does appear to be a work around you can use, provided you're on PS4 or PC. You can find the links to the solutions here.

For PS4 folks have found that making a brand new account fixes the issue, although no one is sure why. Definitely worth a shot though. For Steam you need to make a new account as well, and then set up Family Sharing so that you can play Dark Souls 3 on the newly created account. You can transfer your save over to the new account) by replacing the save files in the new account with the ones from the old account, but some folks have reported that transferring the save didn't work, so you may be forced to start a new account if you want to do Darkmoon/Blue Sentinels coop.

So, in short, the whole thing seems to be broken and the only workarounds are kind of terrible, but there are workarounds. Once it is all working the range for being summoned is (source) (Host = Way of Blue player, Summon = Blue Sentienl/Darkmoon Player):

Host's Level - 10 - (Host's Level * 0.1) < Summon' Level <Host's Level + 10 + (Host's Level * 0.1)

Answer 2

I am about 250 +/- NG6 and have been using Darkmoon since I got it on the first play through, almost never removing it. I think I am ranked in the Darkmoon Knights book at around 450. I get summoned regularly, but lately it has tapered off.

I will say that when I am summoned, I never know which bonfire area it will be in: I have been summoned into the endgame areas while running around in an NG run on high wall, and vice versa. So I personally have not noticed any correlation between where I am and where whoever "called the cops" is.

I do think the higher level players do not run with the Way of the Blue very much, but it also may be a reduction in the player pool: when I first got it was within a day or so of release on PC and at that point one could get summoned as a phantom within seconds of dropping a sign down. I would get Darkmoon/Sentinel summon every minute or so during peak times.

I used to get summoned a lot without being embered and I run around embered almost 100% of the time now and I am not swamped by invaders nor summons, so the pool is probably reduced both by volume and also my level, and it is unclear to me if ember status has anything to do with it.

It it pretty normal now that I occasionaly have to take off the Covenant for a half hour to avoid being re-summoned into the same fight club or game multiple times. This, to me, indicates that the pool of available people is very low.

Answer 3

There is no known way to increase the darkmoon summons.

People currently suspect and say that the higher level you are and higher your weapon the less you will get summoned due to people leaving the way of the blue for other covenants as the game progresses. I however am not sure if any of that is true (personally I always wear blue while embered). I also have worn the blue sentinel and darkmoon every time I am not embered and have yet to get summoned. (currently level 100 and grinding out the proofs.)

Answer 4

Personally, I think the reason the summon chances are so low is that people don't tend to keep the way of blue after they find something else. This is a pain because the Sunbro item is in the second main area of the game, a major problem as the warriors of sunlight are, and this is just an estimate, the most popular group in the game.

The best way to grind for the proof of concord kept items is to just get a friend to be way of blue and both of you camp out in the area people normally host fight clubs after the Pontiff. Once someone spawns in and you hopefully join their world, kill the invader and repeat until you have enough for rank 2 and beyond.