In Demons Souls when you checked a persons soul sign it showed how many online sessions he participated in and the score S-A-B.. etc that he averaged for those sessions.

I thought that was kinda neat - like you saw oh wow this guy got summoned like 600 times he must know this area in and out.

I wonder why they took that out - and do you guys care? I kinda wish they put it back in. It's not like I wouldn't summon someone if he had only bad scores but it's fun to have stats. I dunno I just love stats..

@Humanity said:

I thought that was kinda neat - like you saw oh wow this guy got summoned like 600 times he must know this area in and out.

That's exactly why they took it out. Once Demon's Souls had been out for awhile, newer players who hadn't been summoned many times would be passed up fairly often for players who had been summoned many times. This way, when you're summoning someone it's pretty much an equal playing field.

I was human right before the Smough and Ornstein fight, so I decided to summon someone (I've been soloing all of the bosses and am usually undead for most of the game, so this was rare for me) to help me out. The little preview of the guy wasn't promising (basic armor, no crazy weapon, etc) and I almost decided to grab someone else, but I figured I'd just get ganked by phantoms if I hung around for too long. Turns out, he was awesome: he held off Smough no problem while I wailed on Ornstein, barely needed any healing and generally made the fight a lot easier.

I guess what I'm trying to say is looks can be deceiving and if you had stats, you might avoid a guy who never was summoned in and miss someone awesome.