Vapourware Dark Souls/Elden Ring modding megathread (Archthrones demo available now)

[Hell Swarm]

I've put some more time into Archstones and I'm actually going to highly recommend it. The starting weapons all suck so you should drop them for literally anything else you can use. Upgrade material is plentiful in the war torn village so you can get a +3 weapon (or more if you want to farm) pretty early. Once you have a few levels your damage and survivability starts to match up well with what you're fighting. Very rough start but totally worth it. Some of the early bosses I've fought I would say are up there with the best From have done. Absolutely fantastic timing on the attacks. Many look over the top but the dodge timing is just right to be comfortable but needing you to be focused on what you're doing. This is a solid 9/10 game so far. Prepare to get your shit kicked in but enjoy the exploration because it's by far the Fromest souls mod/souls like I've played. It's additions are good, they even improve on From's Elden ring design with the parry timing guard counter and it's as useful here as Elden Ring. And very interesting to see enemies using it too.

High praise. Any idea when they will be done with the mod?

Probably years. If it doesn't crash and burn first.

They have 1 major design flaw. The start of every area is bullshit hard. Enemies way too powerful to deal with. But if you run past them to the 2nd bonfire enemies are reasonable again. Complete bullshit but interesting to note. If you can't handle the start of an area you can probably handle the later parts of it fine. A room with 4 stone knights and a heide knight is way harder than fighting a couple of large hollows in a row.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Archstones just got a sizable patch for the demo. It rebalances a bunch of stuff, adds more upgrade material and the sharp gem. Really helps the game and it feels a lot farier now.

Highly recommending it if you haven't got it yet. Demo has 17 bosses and most of them are pretty decent.

 

[Spike]

I am enjoying this. I am about 9-10 hours in I think. The Carthus area is unfinished, correct? I mean I know most of it is unfinished, but Carthus in particular- ringing those 3 bells does nothing, correct? I also beat a couple areas and I haven't received any souls for the Archthrone yet. Maybe that's in the final product.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Ringing bells should spawn necromancer in the hall

 

[Hell Swarm]

I am enjoying this. I am about 9-10 hours in I think. The Carthus area is unfinished, correct? I mean I know most of it is unfinished, but Carthus in particular- ringing those 3 bells does nothing, correct? I also beat a couple areas and I haven't received any souls for the Archthrone yet. Maybe that's in the final product.

You need to ring 5. An NPC will tell you how manys left.

 

[Spike]

I am enjoying this. I am about 9-10 hours in I think. The Carthus area is unfinished, correct? I mean I know most of it is unfinished, but Carthus in particular- ringing those 3 bells does nothing, correct? I also beat a couple areas and I haven't received any souls for the Archthrone yet. Maybe that's in the final product.

You need to ring 5. An NPC will tell you how manys left.

I didn't realize I hadn't explored nor found the actual place where the necromancer is. I have since rung them. Does that NPC girl mention it? I don't recall anyone keeping track. Either way, he's a stamina-emptier. A little obnoxious but overall fun fight!

EDIT: Man, getting real tired of these endless combos. I'm fighting the Phoenix bird guy and it's just obnoxious. Almost got him though even after tanking several hits because it just melts your stamina! And there's no room to counterattack!
EDIT 2: Okay I finished the demo. Super fun! 12 hours. Good stuff and well worth playing.

 

[ADL]

I don't have enough hours to know how different these are but Reforged finally has some footage.

 

[Lyre Mors]

This Elden Ring mod sounds amazing.











Sorry about the twitter linking, but it's the only place where there's any information about it so far.

Also, turns out the mod name was already taken by another project, so they're going to change the name to something else.

 

[ADL]

That sounds great and what I was expecting given GRRM's involvement. If I could take one feature from one game and give it to another, it'd be STALKER's A-Life system in Elden Ring.

 

[ADL]

 

[Hell Swarm]

Sounds like a lot of hot air until it's actually released and we can play it.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I'm skepticle of their ability to mimic/recreate the brilliance of FS. I wouldn't touch this fanfic shit even if I had a PC. Graphics mods would be nice though. Did they ever successfully restore Dark Souls 2's original lighting?

 

[Lyre Mors]

I'm skepticle of their ability to mimic/recreate the brilliance of FS.

If they follow through with what they're saying, this is going to be magnificent. Though, I mainly view most overhaul mods as an opportunity to replay a game you love with some fresh mechanics. It's just another level of replayability without the stagnation of playing through the exact same thing again and again.

Did they ever successfully restore Dark Souls 2's original lighting?

Still in the works. Possible release this year.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Do we have a good mod for Elden Ring currently? Gameplay focused one I mean

Probably worth to backup current version of Eldern Ring and the mod to play before the big patch and DLC wreck things up and mod might or might not be updated

 

[ADL]

I might just wait to play the DLC until after this comes out.

 

[Lyre Mors]

It's going to be an awesome mod, but no way will I wait to play the DLC until there's a v1.0 of it. Who knows how long that'll actually take.

It'll be perfect for a replay a half-year, year, or two down the line, though.

 

[ADL]

Do we have a good mod for Elden Ring currently? Gameplay focused one I mean

Reforged and Convergence are the main ones. Can also look at Reborn which people seem to like.

It's going to be an awesome mod, but no way will I wait to play the DLC until there's a v1.0 of it. Who knows how long that'll actually take.

It'll be perfect for a replay a half-year, year, or two down the line, though.

tbh I'm not really interested in playing through Elden Ring without significant changes to the way the open world functions to be less static. Such a missed opportunity, it's frustrating to such an extent that I can't enjoy it.

Sorry linear games, I was wrong about you!!!

 

[Lyre Mors]

tbh I'm not really interested in playing through Elden Ring without significant changes to the way the open world functions to be less static. Such a missed opportunity, it's frustrating to such an extent that I can't enjoy it.

Do you not have an endgame character that's ready to go into the DLC?

And frankly, I'm of the general opinion an open world is better made with hand-placed encounters. The mod sounds interesting for a replay, but I prefer my open world to be hand-crafted in most aspects.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Do you not have an endgame character that's ready to go into the DLC?

And frankly, I'm of the general opinion an open world is better made with hand-placed encounters. The mod sounds interesting for a replay, but I prefer my open world to be hand-crafted in most aspects.

Most people probably have a complete save they will use.

Hand-crafted open world doesn't look much different to one that isn't. It's such a bland genre and you spend most the time walking past things so it all blurs together either way.

 

[Spike]

Do you not have an endgame character that's ready to go into the DLC?

And frankly, I'm of the general opinion an open world is better made with hand-placed encounters. The mod sounds interesting for a replay, but I prefer my open world to be hand-crafted in most aspects.

Most people probably have a complete save they will use.

Hand-crafted open world doesn't look much different to one that isn't. It's such a bland genre and you spend most the time walking past things so it all blurs together either way.

Every game by Piranha Bytes would like a word with you...

 

[Lyre Mors]

Most people probably have a complete save they will use.

Yeah, I know, but I was asking him because he was acting like he'd have to play through the entire game (again?) to get to the DLC content. And seeing as how we don't know how differently the open world will be crafted in Shadow of the Erdtree, it seems silly to me to bank on the quality of a mod and its full release in order to experience the DLC. IE - if you have an endgame character ready, just play the DLC and enjoy a replay with the mod someday down the line.

And I completely disagree with you about hand-crafted vs not. As our friend Spike points out...

Every game by Piranha Bytes would like a word with you...

And when it comes to combat encounters in the open world of Elden Ring, yes, I do prefer them static and handplaced over random and level-scaling, at least for a first playthrough.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Do you not have an endgame character that's ready to go into the DLC?

And frankly, I'm of the general opinion an open world is better made with hand-placed encounters. The mod sounds interesting for a replay, but I prefer my open world to be hand-crafted in most aspects.

Most people probably have a complete save they will use.

Hand-crafted open world doesn't look much different to one that isn't. It's such a bland genre and you spend most the time walking past things so it all blurs together either way.

Every game by Piranha Bytes would like a word with you...

The handcrafted open world of Elex probably isn't where you want to argue for their quality

 

[Silva]

Sorry linear games, I was wrong about you!!!

Come on, this is unfair to Phantom Pain.

Sure, it has it's problems and being somewhat empty is one of them, but what is actually there is much more alive and interactive than 99% of games in the industry - reactive AI that dynamically adapts to player actions, outposts communicating with each other asking/sending reinforcements, sprawling missions doable through a myriad different approaches, coordinating enemy platoons, meaningful weather, meaningful camouflage-terrain synergy, a great stealth system, strategical base management affecting the open-world in various ways, etc. If Phantom Pain was properly finished it would blow the roof. Period. Right now in it's unfinished state it's still better than anything out there except maybe STALKER and Zelda BotW.

 

[ADL]

I love The Phantom Pain (modded with Infinite Heaven which I highly recommend to anyone reading this) but I wish they went with a handful of levels designed like Ground Zeroes and the recent Hitman games. Sucks that it took mods to properly utilize the open worlds but at least modders managed to do so. It is what it is.

Do you not have an endgame character that's ready to go into the DLC?

I do, just not day 1 purchase hyped for it.

 

[ADL]