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About this mod
This mod is a challenge mode for Elden Ring. It's designed to offer excellent replayability for hardened veterans, both in NG and NG+.
For those who want to experience the thrill of their first playthrough once again :-)
Updated for Elden Ring v1.10
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
This mode is continued here for Shadow of the erdtree : https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/5508
Main changes
- All mobs will notice you from much further, and purchase you for longer
- All mobs and bosses have significantly more HP and deal slightly more damage
- NG+ offers a proper challenge from the early areas
- Main bosses unlock regular smithing stones at the Twin Maiden Husks
- "Soft randomizer" for common loot throughout the game to keep things fresh. Better merchant inventories.
About 1800 of the 4000 game items have been randomized. Most of the useless crafting materials are replaced with various consumables. Many rare "drop only" items are now guaranteed somewhere in the world : for example, you can now find a Dismounter somewhere in Limgrave.
Does not affect progression items nor guaranteed weapons/armor/spells/ashes of war (You can weave in and out of the mod with no worries to miss an important item).
- Numerous balance tweaks to keep in check the strongest stuff while increasing the number of viable options
I slightly nerfed the most abusable mechanics, while buffing numerous weakish options from the base game. You'll find the complete changelog below.
How bad is it?
If you were able to complete Elden Ring vanilla without strongly relying on coop/summons, you should do fine with this mod.
You'll have to relearn areas and play more cautious but this should never feel impossible. The hardest pinnacle bossfights are probably around the level of Ludwig / Slave Knight Gael / Orphan of Kos from previous games.
Main prerequisite is to like being challenged, and finding your way around it!
Installing the mod
This mod merely changes some numeric values from the regulation.bin parameters file of Elden Ring
TLDR : Download the .zip and extract it in your game folder to replace the regulation.bin by the modded version
1. First set your game to offline mode, as trying to load the mod online will trigger the anti-cheat (System > Network > Play offline)
2. Locate your game folder, should look like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ELDEN RING\Game
3. Backup the original regulation.bin file to be able to restore to vanilla anytime
4. Download the .zip and extract it in your game folder to replace the regulation.bin by the modded version
5. Start offline & enjoy!
As a game update may break this mod without notice, I suggest you don't update your game during a playthrough without double checking I released a compatible version.
Detailed balance tweaks
Main buffs:
- Two handed moves of most weapon classes deal a bit more damage. This aims at giving 2H style a bit more space between dual wield and 1H+Shields. Excludes AoW.
Main nerfs:
- Summons have -25% HP
- Thresholds for both Hemorrage and Frostbite increased by 25%
- Jump attacks deal 25% less poise damage (now 300% of a normal attack instead of 400%)
-"S-Tier weapon arts" slightly nerfed
- Blasphemous Blade, Godslayer's Greastword, Astel Wings FP costs increased
- Flame of the Redmanes poise damage slightly reduced
- Square Off! FP cost from 6-8 to 8-12
- Unsheathe FP cost from 10-15 to 12-20
Other tweaks
Prestige weapons
- Carian Knight's Sword: slightly better scaling
- Miquellan Knight's Sword: better scaling, AoW now Square Off
- Loretta's War Sickle: better scaling
- Beastclaw Great Hammer: better scaling
- Eclipse Shotel: massive buff to the AoW
- Inseparable Sword: AoW now Sword Dance
- Dragonscale Blade : added small base lightning damage
- Gargoyle's Black Halberd : AoW now Storm Assault
- Dragon Greatclaw : AoW now Lightning Slash
Incantations
- Fire Surge; Fire's Deadly Sin : significant dmg buff
- Elden Stars : large dmg buff, now has a couple of legit good use cases
- Black Flame Blade : duration increased from 7 to 12 seconds
- Lansseax Glaive, Ancient Dragons' Lightning Spear : now deal significant poise damage
- Vyke's dragonbolt : now provides a stronger weapon buff than Electrify Armament
Light shields rebalance
- Buffs to the ligher small/medium shields so you have more options than "just grab the Brass Shield and forget about it". Phys guard of "sub 100%" shields raised, some buffs on elemental resists and stability. Small changes on the STR requirements of some shields.
Spears, halberds :
- Most of them get a 70% (Spears) or 85% (Halberds) physical defence when blocking, but with a poor stability. Opens up a "Retaliation playstyle" with high enough endurance.
Axes, greataxes
- +10% base dmg on light axes and +5% on greataxes to make up for their limited moveset
Greatswords
- slightly upped the requirements of the following greatswords : Knight's, Banished Knight's, Gargoyle's and Iron Greatsword so they are not a straight upgrade over their early game cousins (Claymore, Bastard, Lordsworn's) in all scenarios
Crystal weapons
- Rebalanced as decent hybrid int/dex or int/str weapons with a crit multiplier as a gimmick, changed a couple of weakish AoW
Curved swords rebalance
Rebalanced the non-unique curved swords to not have the Bandit's having both the best dmg + best range in nearly all scenarios.
Quality infusion
- scales a bit better (like +5% AR at 50STR/DEX)
Lighter light armors
- Slight buff to light load characters by reducing further the weight of the lightest armor pieces in the game. You can typically save 3-5 weight at light load for a bit of extra defense or fashion.
Lowered downsides of increased damage taken mechanics
Scarseals & Soreseals, Scorpions Charms, Crucible Feather, Windy Crystal Tear and Primal Glintstone Blade had their downside significantly reduced (-50%)
Infos for further modding/editing
Here's some minimalistic info would you like to revert some of the changes of the mod, add your own or merge with another mod. It's honestly not that hard if you are ready to problem solve a bit.
This mods alters the following tables :
AtkParam_PC for 2H movesets dmg and AoW dmg/poise damage.
ClearCountParam for across the board changes on Frostbite and Hemorrage thresholds
EquipParamWeapon for weapons/shields balance changes
EquipParamProtector for weight changes on the lightest armor pieces
ItemLotParam_map for changes of world loot
NpcParam for changes on BaseHP for enemies, summons (type 47) and coop NPCs (type 2)
NpcThinkParam for changes on mob aggro (Sight distance, Sense distance, Sight angles, Retreat home distance & max distance)
ReinforceParamWeapon for changes on Quality weapons scaling
ShopLineupParam for changes on the Twin Maiden Husk shop
SwordArtsParam for changes on Ashes of War FP costs
SpEffectParam for damage scaling changes in NG and NG+ (Rows ID 7000 to 7680)
If you are only interested in a few of the mod features, you can easily restore the tables you are not interested in to default values. You'll find the vanilla .csv versions of those tables in the \res\GR\Data\Vanilla subfolder of Yapped, simply make a copy of them in \res\GR\Data, then use the import tool to load them in and override my changes.
Main changes
- All mobs will notice you from much further, and purchase you for longer
- All mobs and bosses have significantly more HP and deal slightly more damage
- NG+ offers a proper challenge from the early areas
- Main bosses unlock regular smithing stones at the Twin Maiden Husks
- "Soft randomizer" for common loot throughout the game to keep things fresh. Better merchant inventories.
About 1800 of the 4000 game items have been randomized. Most of the useless crafting materials are replaced with various consumables. Many rare "drop only" items are now guaranteed somewhere in the world : for example, you can now find a Dismounter somewhere in Limgrave.
Does not affect progression items nor guaranteed weapons/armor/spells/ashes of war (You can weave in and out of the mod with no worries to miss an important item).
- Numerous balance tweaks to keep in check the strongest stuff while increasing the number of viable options
I slightly nerfed the most abusable mechanics, while buffing numerous weakish options from the base game. You'll find the complete changelog below.
How bad is it?
If you were able to complete Elden Ring vanilla without strongly relying on coop/summons, you should do fine with this mod.
You'll have to relearn areas and play more cautious but this should never feel impossible. The hardest pinnacle bossfights are probably around the level of Ludwig / Slave Knight Gael / Orphan of Kos from previous games.
Main prerequisite is to like being challenged, and finding your way around it!
Installing the mod
This mod merely changes some numeric values from the regulation.bin parameters file of Elden Ring
TLDR : Download the .zip and extract it in your game folder to replace the regulation.bin by the modded version
1. First set your game to offline mode, as trying to load the mod online will trigger the anti-cheat (System > Network > Play offline)
2. Locate your game folder, should look like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ELDEN RING\Game
3. Backup the original regulation.bin file to be able to restore to vanilla anytime
4. Download the .zip and extract it in your game folder to replace the regulation.bin by the modded version
5. Start offline & enjoy!
As a game update may break this mod without notice, I suggest you don't update your game during a playthrough without double checking I released a compatible version.
Detailed balance tweaks
Main buffs:
- Two handed moves of most weapon classes deal a bit more damage. This aims at giving 2H style a bit more space between dual wield and 1H+Shields. Excludes AoW.
Main nerfs:
- Summons have -25% HP
- Thresholds for both Hemorrage and Frostbite increased by 25%
- Jump attacks deal 25% less poise damage (now 300% of a normal attack instead of 400%)
-"S-Tier weapon arts" slightly nerfed
- Blasphemous Blade, Godslayer's Greastword, Astel Wings FP costs increased
- Flame of the Redmanes poise damage slightly reduced
- Square Off! FP cost from 6-8 to 8-12
- Unsheathe FP cost from 10-15 to 12-20
Other tweaks
Prestige weapons
- Carian Knight's Sword: slightly better scaling
- Miquellan Knight's Sword: better scaling, AoW now Square Off
- Loretta's War Sickle: better scaling
- Beastclaw Great Hammer: better scaling
- Eclipse Shotel: massive buff to the AoW
- Inseparable Sword: AoW now Sword Dance
- Dragonscale Blade : added small base lightning damage
- Gargoyle's Black Halberd : AoW now Storm Assault
- Dragon Greatclaw : AoW now Lightning Slash
Incantations
- Fire Surge; Fire's Deadly Sin : significant dmg buff
- Elden Stars : large dmg buff, now has a couple of legit good use cases
- Black Flame Blade : duration increased from 7 to 12 seconds
- Lansseax Glaive, Ancient Dragons' Lightning Spear : now deal significant poise damage
- Vyke's dragonbolt : now provides a stronger weapon buff than Electrify Armament
Light shields rebalance
- Buffs to the ligher small/medium shields so you have more options than "just grab the Brass Shield and forget about it". Phys guard of "sub 100%" shields raised, some buffs on elemental resists and stability. Small changes on the STR requirements of some shields.
Spears, halberds :
- Most of them get a 70% (Spears) or 85% (Halberds) physical defence when blocking, but with a poor stability. Opens up a "Retaliation playstyle" with high enough endurance.
Axes, greataxes
- +10% base dmg on light axes and +5% on greataxes to make up for their limited moveset
Greatswords
- slightly upped the requirements of the following greatswords : Knight's, Banished Knight's, Gargoyle's and Iron Greatsword so they are not a straight upgrade over their early game cousins (Claymore, Bastard, Lordsworn's) in all scenarios
Crystal weapons
- Rebalanced as decent hybrid int/dex or int/str weapons with a crit multiplier as a gimmick, changed a couple of weakish AoW
Curved swords rebalance
Rebalanced the non-unique curved swords to not have the Bandit's having both the best dmg + best range in nearly all scenarios.
Quality infusion
- scales a bit better (like +5% AR at 50STR/DEX)
Lighter light armors
- Slight buff to light load characters by reducing further the weight of the lightest armor pieces in the game. You can typically save 3-5 weight at light load for a bit of extra defense or fashion.
Lowered downsides of increased damage taken mechanics
Scarseals & Soreseals, Scorpions Charms, Crucible Feather, Windy Crystal Tear and Primal Glintstone Blade had their downside significantly reduced (-50%)
Infos for further modding/editing
Here's some minimalistic info would you like to revert some of the changes of the mod, add your own or merge with another mod. It's honestly not that hard if you are ready to problem solve a bit.
- You can edit the regulation.bin of Elden Ring using the Yapped Rune Bear tool by wawser : https://github.com/vawser/Yapped-Rune-Bear
- This tool refers Elden Ring as "Greater Rune/GR". Use "Import Names" to get a lot of useful info on which line does what.
- You can change manually values, or export a whole table to .csv (supported by Excel); edit it and reimport it from the "data" Yapped subfolder (useful for mass changes, or reverting a whole table to vanilla)
This mods alters the following tables :
AtkParam_PC for 2H movesets dmg and AoW dmg/poise damage.
ClearCountParam for across the board changes on Frostbite and Hemorrage thresholds
EquipParamWeapon for weapons/shields balance changes
EquipParamProtector for weight changes on the lightest armor pieces
ItemLotParam_map for changes of world loot
NpcParam for changes on BaseHP for enemies, summons (type 47) and coop NPCs (type 2)
NpcThinkParam for changes on mob aggro (Sight distance, Sense distance, Sight angles, Retreat home distance & max distance)
ReinforceParamWeapon for changes on Quality weapons scaling
ShopLineupParam for changes on the Twin Maiden Husk shop
SwordArtsParam for changes on Ashes of War FP costs
SpEffectParam for damage scaling changes in NG and NG+ (Rows ID 7000 to 7680)
If you are only interested in a few of the mod features, you can easily restore the tables you are not interested in to default values. You'll find the vanilla .csv versions of those tables in the \res\GR\Data\Vanilla subfolder of Yapped, simply make a copy of them in \res\GR\Data, then use the import tool to load them in and override my changes.