I want to express my gratitude to all of you guys for the comments, the support and the endorsements, we hit the hot files already, thank you so much!.
I also wanted to say thank you to FrankFamily for he's outstanding work on the 2 custom sets of weapons and the ring that he made for Darkend alongside the effects and the scripts and to Teabag86 and Nazenn for their extensive testing and ideas that made DarkenD what it is.
-Added Knight Commander’s castle, Searock castle to the most eastern part of the map, where the fishermen’s camp was. - A few new Journals. - An entire new level for the tower of the Ancients dungeon. - New final boss fight, The Forgotten King's Shadow and his champions Knights. - New item, The Crown of the Forgotten King, custom model made by FrankFamily. - Some new enemies with custom models. - More and tougher existent enemies plus new variations. - One new potion (Divine Blessing) greatly restores Health, Stamina and Magika over time. - Fleshed out some exterior portions of the island including the Tower of the Ancients open Section. - A new two handed Sword with custom model (Zweihander) courtesy of Derok. - A new Heater Shield model for the Skeletons Knights to replace the vanilla steel shield that I was using. - Some minor fixes and stuff that I don't really remember.
Note: I suck at enemy combat behavior and I don't know anything about scripting, I'm aware that the "boss fights" are very basic, if someone have the knowledge and wants to lend me a hand to improved them please send me a PM.
Last, English is not my native language and I'm not a writer, far from it, I did my best writing the various journals and notes found in the mod, so don't expect anything mind blowing story wise.
In general, it’s a pretty nice mod, but exclusively for dark souls fans. Personally, I didn’t like wandering around the island with the weather in the style of silent hill, while there were only skeletons around, there were a lot of them, they were boring. There are no quest markers, no quest as such, which is unnatural and inconvenient for Skyrim. A hefty “dungeon”, filled with strong knights, very atmospheric (although there is no specific music here, which is a pity), but at the same time a typical Skyrim-style dungeon - complete it in an hour and get a weapon from the boss as a reward, but do you really need it? Impressions, of course, are average. Total: boredom, no quests, sad skeletons, bad loot and fog. These are the disadvantages. Everything else is a plus.
I remember years ago going inside the castle like mega structure (no, not the church) the temple had brought the fps down really low, I gotta really download this again and play to see
: I played this Mod (V1.2) twice and both moments I liked the exploration challenge but I found the combat quite bitter and demotivational. Seriously, skeleton archers that does stacking bleeding damage for 60 seconds doesn't sound a challenge, feels more a looping rage every time you get hit by the arrows (blocking them or not) and nothing saves your life if you get hit 4 times in a row and don't gulp 40 vegetable soups to solve this.
Even with a character of high stats, 1000 HP, LV 200, Max Armour, 50% of magical and elemental defence, was worse than fighting Ebony Warrior or Karstaag. Maybe this is because I play the game on Legendary difficulty but even Ebony Warrior and Karstaag are plausible to defeat if you strategize well with only the vanilla game in this difficulty.
I even tried adding Tk Combat, Tk Dodge and Ultimate Combat to make things look more interesting and balanced but just by the fact that almost everything you face takes 1/5 of your health and/or some doing the damn bleeding damage makes it just hard to enjoy combat. Enemies also level up with you and are 5 ~ 9 Lvs ahead, making your hard work levelling not worth much and if you dare to level more they'll have more HP and combat may end tediously.
The final bosses are so overpowered and with high defences that just one attack of them was enough to chop 600 of Health to almost insta death and magic barely does something (same for some enemies), irritating to say the least and worse than Ebony Warrior and Karstaag together. This render most of the classes, such as Pure Mage Class, not be welcomed for this mod.
I was interested in the lore, as I though it would be something gory, when I played it twice and the first time I cleared the mod I though I missed something. The second time I played it I made sure to look in every corner to get all the journals and once again I ended the mod understanding absolutely nothing. Some people I saw in the comments criticised the english spelling problem but this is of minimal importance. I don't know if it is by the fact that I never played Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but I felt everything so vague. The player seems to have no role, being dragonborn or not and the antagonist is as empty as Phalus itself.
When I entered the final tower, exploration lost importance and combat turned boring to the point that I just wanted to finish the mod, although, I liked the level design of it and most of the rest.
The last thing I noticed, which was quite irritating, was the music, Dread, playing every time you do a step in Phalus. This quite kill the exploration feeling and immersion.
Overall I still liked the mod, specially the time I spent, around 9 hours to finish it. However with many flaws, specially in combat, will be hard to take it again to play.
P.S: I also found the V1.4 lying in the comments for some strange logic. Decided to play it to see if some hope appeared and few things got a deserved balance, at least the common enemies no longer have bleeding damage, however, many are still broken, new ones also too OP, dragons with +10K of HP, the final boss taking 1600 of HP yours with a single attack (playing it in Legendary Difficulty of course) and now reflects any attack you do (like ebony warrior). Without mention oversights and other things still present like some weapons and other armours not having tempering recipes, the Old King's Crown not appearing for all races properly like Argonians & Khajiits. The music, Dread, playing all the time you walk around "Pharos", lore still vague and so on. No wonder patches were created from other users to fix those things, at least the broken foes.
If someone really want to play this mod and don't want to rage quit or tear the hair because of its broken stuff I suggest to play it when you max all your skills (literally reach LV 81), have armour with enchantments that reduce Destruction spell usage and increase elemental defences. Bring two stupid iron daggers with both Chaos Damage and Absorb Health enchantments in each of them plus 200 Vegetable soups and 600 of armour, BUT, the most important part, play it on Novice Difficulty. This mod is impossible to play at Master or Legendary difficulties without the use of some support cheat, other mods or console.
Yeah this mod is interesting, although I can say that the dark souls difficulty gap is both unique and off putting :confusion: I don't believe in cheating and using tgm and mods to make me over 100 lv and all that, so I go in as is. I would say that if you don't have a dodge mod, you really need to consider that. I use signature equipment, which makes my armor get stronger the more I use it, so I have strong armor and weapon stats.
It's tough to say whether I like the added difficulty or not, I use Nether's follower framework overhaul, but I also use followers can die and get injured that coupled with realistic needs and maximum carnage makes my game a bit tough, plus I play using adapt difficulty (there's no way I believe in ever using easy or novice difficulty after a decade of playthroughs)
I would say use the dodge mod, that will make a huge difference, and bring health potions. Other than that maybe the mod author might consider a tame version(?)
: I always liked to play the very base Vanilla combat, and by the time I did a playthrough of it I was using Ultimate Combat and TK Dodge which are common among users and improve combat strategies a lot. Even with those MODs aiding your side they were partially not enough for small parts of the MOD. I think that what really killed the MOD's immersion was the Bosses with their OP stats contrasting the common enemies, at least the penultimate and final ones, many which levels up with you and does not have a level cap, so more level means more Health and Physical damage.
Problem is that you have a cap in your defences and even when you max all your Armour Rating and Magical/Elemental Defences and fill all skill trees with perks, assuming you reach LV.252, for this MOD will not be enough. Over Powered magic at least can be controlled by using the Atronach Stone + the Atronach Perk and Miraak's Robes. The physical defence is the worst because you don't have anything Absorb Magic Like perk, aside from Reflect Blows and Deft Movement which rarely helps you and can't stack. Once you hit the 80% cap of Physical Defence things get complicated with NPCs that levels up with you.
If that wasn't enough I also analysed the build of the bosses and foes some time ago by curiosity using Creation Kit, many of them containing perks that doubles and/or giving extra damage ignoring armour and halving damage received like the Orc's racial ability, Berserk, but, stacked more than once. I was in the hopes the weapons and other apparel obtained through exploring all MOD's corners would help with the last bosses, at least the final one, but still none of them helped.
The very vanilla strategy I did to defeat only the final boss and complete the MOD on Legendary was using full Dragon Aspect Shout, casting frost cloak spell and 2 Storm Atronachs, Full Heavy Armour using Konahrik's Mask, LVL up until achieving +/- 4000 Health, gulping 1000 Vegetable Soups all at once and enchanting two iron daggers each with Chaos + Fire Damages and dual wielding them. All this without the aid of other combat MODs. Alternatively using Targe Of The Bloodied instead of another dagger and constantly bashing to cause stacking bleeding damage and interrupting the boss all the time does the trick but takes ages to finish.
Another MOD I noticed having similar unstable combat was Oblivion Realms Serie - Gates Of Solitude and Morthal Pain, but those are less extreme and tolerable to finish compared with Darkend. The weapons & apparels you find around makes a difference and rewarding when fighting the bosses if you explore enough. On Legendary is still insane but you don't need to have + 4000 HP, OP weapons and bringing insane amounts of Potions and Vegetable Soups just to finish a boss.
definitely got my head spinning with the lack of quest markers, but definitely something refreshing and its pretty good though it lacks purpose, what is my purpose being there exactly?
If you want to be masochist try completing this with the following mods: Realistic Needs and Diseases, plus these or you will starve: Cooking Ingredients, Dovahcook - Cooking Recipes Expansion and Alchemical Cooking Recipes Diseased - diseases system overhaul Chasing the Dragon - Toxicity and Addiction Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival Wounds Bathing in Skyrim TDF Equipment Restriction
Holy Cowly what a incredible mod! The whole scenario was incredible well made and every detail was observed when telling us a story with the use of a very few journals. The absence of friendly NPCs made things way more interesting, the loneliness feeling is our only company in Pharos... amazing mod!
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1167 comments
I want to express my gratitude to all of you guys for the comments, the support and the endorsements, we hit the hot files already, thank you so much!.
I also wanted to say thank you to FrankFamily for he's outstanding work on the 2 custom sets of weapons and the ring that he made for Darkend alongside the effects and the scripts and to Teabag86 and Nazenn for their extensive testing and ideas that made DarkenD what it is.
Thank you guys!
Cheers, JK.
List of additions:
-Added Knight Commander’s castle, Searock castle to the most eastern part of the map, where the fishermen’s camp was.
- A few new Journals.
- An entire new level for the tower of the Ancients dungeon.
- New final boss fight, The Forgotten King's Shadow and his champions Knights.
- New item, The Crown of the Forgotten King, custom model made by FrankFamily.
- Some new enemies with custom models.
- More and tougher existent enemies plus new variations.
- One new potion (Divine Blessing) greatly restores Health, Stamina and Magika over time.
- Fleshed out some exterior portions of the island including the Tower of the Ancients open Section.
- A new two handed Sword with custom model (Zweihander) courtesy of Derok.
- A new Heater Shield model for the Skeletons Knights to replace the vanilla steel shield that I was using.
- Some minor fixes and stuff that I don't really remember.
Note: I suck at enemy combat behavior and I don't know anything about scripting, I'm aware that the "boss fights" are very basic, if someone have the knowledge and wants to lend me a hand to improved them please send me a PM.
Last, English is not my native language and I'm not a writer, far from it, I did my best writing the various journals and notes found in the mod, so don't expect anything mind blowing story wise.
Hope you guys and gals Enjoy the new version!
Cheers, JK.
Back-ported to SLE
Thanks to JKROJMAL
LINK
Personally, I didn’t like wandering around the island with the weather in the style of silent hill, while there were only skeletons around, there were a lot of them, they were boring. There are no quest markers, no quest as such, which is unnatural and inconvenient for Skyrim. A hefty “dungeon”, filled with strong knights, very atmospheric (although there is no specific music here, which is a pity), but at the same time a typical Skyrim-style dungeon - complete it in an hour and get a weapon from the boss as a reward, but do you really need it?
Impressions, of course, are average. Total: boredom, no quests, sad skeletons, bad loot and fog. These are the disadvantages. Everything else is a plus.
I've just recently installed the mod, down-scaled the huge-ass textures, and I have higher fps on Phalos Island then I have in Skyrim.
Especially - find a pile of skulls somewhere and come close to them. With FPS indicator enabled.
Even with a character of high stats, 1000 HP, LV 200, Max Armour, 50% of magical and elemental defence, was worse than fighting Ebony Warrior or Karstaag. Maybe this is because I play the game on Legendary difficulty but even Ebony Warrior and Karstaag are plausible to defeat if you strategize well with only the vanilla game in this difficulty.
I even tried adding Tk Combat, Tk Dodge and Ultimate Combat to make things look more interesting and balanced but just by the fact that almost everything you face takes 1/5 of your health and/or some doing the damn bleeding damage makes it just hard to enjoy combat.
Enemies also level up with you and are 5 ~ 9 Lvs ahead, making your hard work levelling not worth much and if you dare to level more they'll have more HP and combat may end tediously.
The final bosses are so overpowered and with high defences that just one attack of them was enough to chop 600 of Health to almost insta death and magic barely does something (same for some enemies), irritating to say the least and worse than Ebony Warrior and Karstaag together. This render most of the classes, such as Pure Mage Class, not be welcomed for this mod.
I was interested in the lore, as I though it would be something gory, when I played it twice and the first time I cleared the mod I though I missed something. The second time I played it I made sure to look in every corner to get all the journals and once again I ended the mod understanding absolutely nothing. Some people I saw in the comments criticised the english spelling problem but this is of minimal importance. I don't know if it is by the fact that I never played Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but I felt everything so vague. The player seems to have no role, being dragonborn or not and the antagonist is as empty as Phalus itself.
When I entered the final tower, exploration lost importance and combat turned boring to the point that I just wanted to finish the mod, although, I liked the level design of it and most of the rest.
The last thing I noticed, which was quite irritating, was the music, Dread, playing every time you do a step in Phalus. This quite kill the exploration feeling and immersion.
Overall I still liked the mod, specially the time I spent, around 9 hours to finish it. However with many flaws, specially in combat, will be hard to take it again to play.
Without mention oversights and other things still present like some weapons and other armours not having tempering recipes, the Old King's Crown not appearing for all races properly like Argonians & Khajiits. The music, Dread, playing all the time you walk around "Pharos", lore still vague and so on. No wonder patches were created from other users to fix those things, at least the broken foes.
If someone really want to play this mod and don't want to rage quit or tear the hair because of its broken stuff I suggest to play it when you max all your skills (literally reach LV 81), have armour with enchantments that reduce Destruction spell usage and increase elemental defences. Bring two stupid iron daggers with both Chaos Damage and Absorb Health enchantments in each of them plus 200 Vegetable soups and 600 of armour, BUT, the most important part, play it on Novice Difficulty. This mod is impossible to play at Master or Legendary difficulties without the use of some support cheat, other mods or console.
I don't believe in cheating and using tgm and mods to make me over 100 lv and all that, so I go in as is. I would say that if you don't have a dodge mod, you really need to consider that. I use signature equipment, which makes my armor get stronger the more I use it, so I have strong armor and weapon stats.
It's tough to say whether I like the added difficulty or not, I use Nether's follower framework overhaul, but I also use followers can die and get injured
I would say use the dodge mod, that will make a huge difference, and bring health potions. Other than that maybe the mod author might consider a tame version(?)
Problem is that you have a cap in your defences and even when you max all your Armour Rating and Magical/Elemental Defences and fill all skill trees with perks, assuming you reach LV.252, for this MOD will not be enough. Over Powered magic at least can be controlled by using the Atronach Stone + the Atronach Perk and Miraak's Robes. The physical defence is the worst because you don't have anything Absorb Magic Like perk, aside from Reflect Blows and Deft Movement which rarely helps you and can't stack. Once you hit the 80% cap of Physical Defence things get complicated with NPCs that levels up with you.
If that wasn't enough I also analysed the build of the bosses and foes some time ago by curiosity using Creation Kit, many of them containing perks that doubles and/or giving extra damage ignoring armour and halving damage received like the Orc's racial ability, Berserk, but, stacked more than once. I was in the hopes the weapons and other apparel obtained through exploring all MOD's corners would help with the last bosses, at least the final one, but still none of them helped.
The very vanilla strategy I did to defeat only the final boss and complete the MOD on Legendary was using full Dragon Aspect Shout, casting frost cloak spell and 2 Storm Atronachs, Full Heavy Armour using Konahrik's Mask, LVL up until achieving +/- 4000 Health, gulping 1000 Vegetable Soups all at once and enchanting two iron daggers each with Chaos + Fire Damages and dual wielding them. All this without the aid of other combat MODs. Alternatively using Targe Of The Bloodied instead of another dagger and constantly bashing to cause stacking bleeding damage and interrupting the boss all the time does the trick but takes ages to finish.
Another MOD I noticed having similar unstable combat was Oblivion Realms Serie - Gates Of Solitude and Morthal Pain, but those are less extreme and tolerable to finish compared with Darkend. The weapons & apparels you find around makes a difference and rewarding when fighting the bosses if you explore enough. On Legendary is still insane but you don't need to have + 4000 HP, OP weapons and bringing insane amounts of Potions and Vegetable Soups just to finish a boss.
Realistic Needs and Diseases, plus these or you will starve: Cooking Ingredients, Dovahcook - Cooking Recipes Expansion and Alchemical Cooking Recipes
Diseased - diseases system overhaul
Chasing the Dragon - Toxicity and Addiction
Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival
Wounds
Bathing in Skyrim
TDF Equipment Restriction