@drmechano: We can agree on the Belfry and rat level being absolute clusterfucks of game design. But what is this insistence on invasions being fair. They should be high risk. And they shouldn't be a common occurence. And chugging estus or eating gems as a red? you absolutely have to be kidding me!

If you want fair battles you will have to find someone, agree some rules, and put your red sign down.

Btw, I have had a fair number of invaders. Might just be my luck. The majority actually in Heides Tower (outside belfry of course), farming old knight gear.

@haniball:

It was more to point out way red invasions sucks, The Belfry convenant gets major advantages over Red phantom invasions, so why bother and I suppose invasions may be subjective but I really only got invaded once and judging by the various other responses in this thread mentioning that they rarely got invaded by red phantoms seems to make you in the minority that experienced it how it should have been.

The Healing thing, well you could heal in Dark Souls 1 as an invader, you had to pop humanity to do it which had the rather major disadvantage of having a long winded animation that was pretty easy to take advantage of over using an Estus, this left Red phantoms fight on a more even playing field and allowing for surviving gank squads if you were skilled enough. Taking away ALL healing for Red invaders was a bit overkill in my opinion, heck make Human Effigies heal the red invader in PvP, they're a limited item that would require farming much like humanity in the first game and basically offer the trade of 'using a harder to get item for healing instead of for summoning'.

@drmechano: Well technically invaders can heal as well, just not with estus or items. Healing spells still work.

I didn't love the invasions in the first Dark Souls. You were finally making your way through some hard enemies and you would get invaded and he/she would always hit harder than you and you would die, with one swing. I did enjoy the fact that it could happen at any moment. Made you hurry through the stages or play with friends. Then, I made it all the way down to Quelaag and her sister, Quelaan, and learned about the Chaos Servants. The invasions weren't players just invading because they are a-holes, they have a purpose. It sucks you have to die, but they needed the Humanities. Since it was part of the Lore, it was acceptable and fun. Same with the Darkwraiths. This was taken away from Dark Souls 2. The Brotherhood of Blood, they invade just because they want blood, no higher reason. You just invade for the sake of invading. No lore required. You're just kind of an a-hole. This and the whole system is against you: Really difficult to get Cracked Red Eye Orbs, you need one for every world you invade and you lose them if the World Master leaves or disconnects or falls or enters the boss, have to duel other BoB Members to get more but you get matched with people up to 4 times your current level (my Lvl 38 priest was fighting against some 123, 125 Lvl opponents), now it's easier to summon people so most of the time you battle against two people at least, Blue Sentinels, can't heal unless you're a priest or pyro, Seed of a Tree of Giants and you get next to nothing if you win. No point. It sucks not having them, it sucks to not have a purpose for them and it sucks the everything is against them.

Played the first 40 hours offline and all of DeS/DS1 offline because I loathe invasions but once I finally plugged in its a new experience and I love the co-op online portion. Only been invaded 3 times in over 200 hrs and even those felt more balanced than what I expected.

Still, I'm glad they limited their occurrence to hinder griefers and improved other PvP areas to allow those looking for PvP to experience it anytime they want just by going to certain areas.

Small tip, play those areas offline when you're doing the story line to avoid any unwanted PvP. I don't believe you can summon in those areas anyway.

I actually summoned a sun bro for the Belfry fight yesterday. We got invaded and dispatched the phantom real quick.

I agree with Mael0010 and DrMechano... And to add insult to injury, leveling in the "invasion oriented covenent" require not only for you to kill50/150/500 hosts (white and gold phantoms doesn't count), but being defeated means -1 toward your kill count (so no ranking up for you). As far as I'm concerned, I didn't like the griefer in Dark Souls 1, but this is too much overkill to make invasion worth the try...
And I'm not even talking about the reward from the ranking up in the Brotherhood of Blood (since there is none for the invasion itself)... which I find underwhelming, if you compare them to the other covenent rewards.