THIS MOD HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH MY NEWER OVERHAUL:
Aspects Gameplay Overhaul at Elden Ring Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
I am keeping this mod up anyway.

This mod is based on Prepare to Die (Hard Mode) at Elden Ring Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
and Remove sorceries incantations and weapons stats requirement at Elden Ring Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
With some of my own changes added on.

--This mod overhauls the enemy AI making them much smarter and deadlier. They will see you from further away, investigate your presence, and chase you longer. Use the darkness and terrain if you want to sneak.
--This mod provides a new level of difficulty with each new NG cycle, starting slightly easier than vanilla then becoming harder than vanilla with each NG+. This allows the player a challenging experience whilst allowing them to learn the game before being thrown straight in to the deep end of the harsh world of FromSoft's games.
--You won't die in 1-2 hits, but fights are longer and you have less flask charges. Learn your enemy's patterns - bosses and hard foes will forgive a few slip-ups, but no more.
--Also included are changes to the fast-travel system, healing flasks, and equipment requirements (please see changes just below).

Note:
This mod is balanced around a single player playthrough, as online is disabled.
The very early game may seem trivial for souls veterans especially. The game's difficulty does ramp up the further you go.

List of changes:

All difficulties: 
-Warp only to churches and cathedrals.
-enemies have hugely increased agro range and better AI. They will follow you longer, can detect stealth more easily, have better hearing. Their line of sight cone is reduced by around 5% to compensate. Using tools and the environment is essential. (did you know you can shoot an arrow or knife at a wall or floor to distract enemies?)
-Start the game with flask at max healing potential and a choice of charges between 4-7. All golden seeds and crystal tears in the game are replaced with a stash of 10,000 runes. This change means you must use your flask charges wisely and choose between HP and FP. Spamming spells is no longer an option unless you are willing to sacrifice your survivability. To compensate, 4 Golden seeds are located next to the first site of Grace where you spawn. You can choose to use them for up to 3 additional charges, leave them, keep them, or sell them for 10,000 each. Choose your own difficulty.
-All equipment and spells have a requirement cost of 1, meaning you can use whatever build you want, anytime, without respeccing or farming runes. (equipment and spells still scale with their corresponding stats).

NG: 
-enemies do 55% damage. 
-player does 120% damage with physical attacks and 100% with all magical and elemental. 
-enemies have 150% HP and 125% stamina and 100% FP.
-Other minor tweaks for balance.
-this is intended to allow for exploration, learning, experimentation on a first playthrough while still being challenging, needing thought and skill. You will still die many times over, but now there's no need to spend 3+ hours stuck on the same boss when there's an entire world to explore.

NG+1:
-enemies do 75% damage.
-player does 100% damage with physical attacks and 75% with all magical and elemental.
-enemies have 180% HP and 135% stamina and 200% FP.
-enemies do +35% stamina damage.
-gain 1/3rd more runes from enemies.
-Other minor tweaks for balance.
-These combined changes mean, when compared to NG, you'll be taking +50% damage and enemies will take +50% more damage to kill. The increase in stamina and FP will also keep you on your toes. This is intended to be a hard, but still a fun challenge once you have the experience of NG and understand the game. The extra runes means grinding should not be needed. You will need to use all your tools, try many builds, learn and exploit enemy weakness.

NG+2:
-enemies do 100% damage. 
-player does 80% damage with physical attacks and 68% with all magical and elemental.
-enemies have 180% HP and 135% stamina and 216% FP.
-enemies do +45% stamina damage.
-gain *slightly* more than 1/3rd more runes from enemies.
-Other minor tweaks for balance.
-These combined changes mean compared to NG, you'll be taking +100% damage and enemies will take +80% more damage to kill. Enemies have had their resistances heavily multiplied, meaning you will have to learn what damage types they are weak to and adapt: remember, you can have any weapons or spells equipped at any time. This is intended to push your limits. It can be done. Good luck, tarnished.

NG+4 to NG+6:
-enemy damage is increased +5% per NG cycle.
-enemy health is increased +5% per NG cycle.
-gain a tiny amount of more runes from enemies per NG cycle.
-this makes each NG about 10% more difficult.
-this is intended to keep on par with NG+3 while still slowly ramping up difficulty and replayability.

NG+7:
As a special treat for making it this far, everything is the same as NG+6 except:
-Enemies are back down to 150% HP
-Enemies deal 220% damage. Watch out!
-Player does massively increased damage.
-This is intended to be a fun run finale where both you and your foes live and die fast. Master not being hit, and strike first!
 

Install:

Backup "regulation.bin" in "ELDEN RING\Game" if you'd like a copy of the original game files.
Put the "regulation.bin" file in "ELDEN RING\Game". Overwrite if asked.
Done!

WARNING:

PLAYING WITH THIS MOD WILL GET YOU BANNED ONLINE.
To avoid this, I recommend using this tool: Anti-cheat toggler and offline launcher at Elden Ring Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)


This mod is now in it's final state. I will not be updating it unless there are any glaring issues I come across.
I hope you have fun and enjoy the game.