QOL MEGA MOD MERGE: NO POPUPS! FREE EMBLEMS! INFINITE PILGRIMAGE BALLOON! REUSABLE JINZA'S JIZO!



THE SHORT OF IT
This is a Mega Merge of my favourite Quality-of-Life Sekiro mods. I'm aiming to make the journey smoother and more streamlined in two ways:

(a) Eliminating unnecessary, redundant interruptions
(b) Slightly balancing the economy to avoid the need for grinding.

I'm trying to achieve this while at the same time keeping the gameplay unaffected in any significant way: You still get the more lore-significant text and you still need to be smart about your financial investments and resource management, you're just having less of your time wasted.

The mods I'm including in this Mega Merge are:

Free Spirit Emblems https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/463 by manawan7
Infinite Tanto https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/173 by pappsy314
Finger Whistle doesn't use Spirit Emblems https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/270 by WT3WD/Lexar's
Infinite Pilgrimage Balloon https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/596 by jasonjulias
Reusable Jinza's Jizo Statue https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/517 by Lhiandrow
No Pop Ups https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/591 by jasonjulias
No Tutorials https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/113 by TKGP



THE LONG OF IT
I love Sekiro. I'm late to the party, but in just a few months it's turned into one of my top 3 favourite From games. I did two playthroughs back to back, both times combing through every single boss, mini boss, NPC quest and item out there; and I'm currently deciding from which save I'll be taking off into NG+.

THAT SAID! The game has a handful of issues that can get pretty irritating pretty fast, which I divide in two categories: Activision's idea of "onboarding" and a handful of weird resource management decisions.

The first category refers to the popups. Those goddamned game-pausing windows that will interrupt the flow of the game at every f'ing step. I despise them. Not only have the tutorials rarely given me any significant help, but they tend to come up in the middle of combat, ensuring that I will be smacked in the face as soon as I resume the action. They are useless and they get in the way. And then there's the pick ups. Oh, the pick ups. Having the item description for pellets or ash clumps or ceramic shards shoved in my face EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I pick one up -and having said item description pause the game as well- makes me wanna go on a small-monkey-kicking rampage. The game is supposed to have a dynamic, swift rhythm about it, and these speedbumps just murder it. This crap has the filthy, greasy fingerprints of Activision all over it. And it needs to go.

The resource management category refers to certain limited-use items and their cost. I'm mainly talking about Spirit Emblems. I understand the need to avoid prosthetic tool spamming somehow, but the way Emblems work feels unfinished and inelegant to begin with, and having them cost money -and having that cost go up as the campaign progresses- is perplexing to say the least. In all fairness, it isn't so bad during regular gameplay, since you get a lot of Emblems from dead enemies anyway. But if you're stuck at a boss -very especially the last few bosses- there's a good chance that you'll burn through your stock in no time, and then you'll burn through whatever money you had to restock, and finally you'll have no choice but to go out and grind mobs to get some more. And there are few things in gaming that I despise more than being forced to grind for consumables. From Software has done this a few times in the past (Bloodborne's Blood Vials or Dark Souls 3's Embers come to mind), but this might be the worst example so far.

SO! after testing a bunch of mods in an attempt to alleviate those issues, I eventually came up with this Superstar QoL Modding Dream Team.

For starters, No Tutorials https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/113 (TKGP) and No Pop Ups https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/591 (jasonjulias) will promptly get rid of all those disgusting Activision finger smudges. I slightly touched up No Pop Ups to leave the ones for unique and/or quest-related items, because I felt they are thematically justified and they're not that annoying since they happen very rarely. I also found that eliminating pop ups from items acquired by slaying bosses makes the small on-screen indicator fade away too quickly for some reason (no idea what that's about yet), which means you'd be at a loss as to what exactly was your reward for beating each boss. Later in this readme I explain how to tweak the mod into blocking more popups.

Free Spirit Emblems https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/463 (manawan7) might very well be my favourite mod in terms of gameplay balance: purchasing Emblems at a Sculptor's Idol has no cost and you can stock up to 999 in storage, while still being limited to the default usable amounts in-game (between 15 and 20, depending on skill progression). So, top off on Emblems once at the beginning of the game, and chances are you won't ever have to worry about running out. It's basically as if Emblems replenished by resting at the Idol -much like Gourds-, which really should've been the default behaviour if you ask me.

I agree with manawan7 that the Infinite Tanto mod https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/173 (pappsy314) makes a good pairing with Free Spirit Emblems, so I also included it. I think the health penalty from using the Tanto already balances it out just fine, and so having its number of uses limited doesn't make a lot of sense.

Finger Whistle Doesn't Use Spirit Emblems https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/270 (WT3WD/Lexar's) aims to make this prosthetic tool a tad more useful. The Finger Whistle is a good ability in the way it complements the stealth, and it can come in handy to deal with beasts; but it's nowhere near as good as to justify its crazy Emblem cost. I find that this mod makes the Finger a much more viable tool in a casual playthrough. Note that both upgrades (Mountain Echo and Malcontent) still have the default Emblem cost, as their particular improvements over the basic version do grant some kind of trade off.

Infinite Pilgrimage Balloon https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/596 (jasonjulias) and Reusable Jinza's Jizo Statue https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/517 (Lhiandrow) are both included under a similar reasoning: the vanilla versions of these items being one-time use is quite underwhelming, especially considering they're both late-game rewards to NPC quests. These mods make pursuing those quests actually worth it, and thematically they kind of follow the same logic behind Spiritfalls, Hidden Tooth or the Gourd variations: all of them being infinite(ish) versions of what in the early game were finite consumables. The Reusable Jinza's Jizo comes particularly handy in the last few boss fights, since having more than one resurrection node can be extremely helpful, and by default that's yet another thing that would have you waste time grinding random mobs.



INSTALLATION
Not much to say, just the usual song and dance: download and install Sekiro Mod Engine https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/6 and then copy the contents of my rar file to ..\sekiro\mods\ (you might need to create the "mods" folder if it's not already there).

This is what your folder structure should look like after installing:

{STEAM INSTALLATION FOLDER}
|
--> \steamapps
|
--> \common
|
--> \Sekiro
|
--> \mods
|
--> \event
| |
| |-> \common.emevd.dcx
| |-> \common_func.emevd.dcx
| |-> \m10_00_00_00.emevd.dcx
| |-> \m11_00_00_00.emevd.dcx
| |-> \m11_01_00_00.emevd.dcx
| --> \m11_02_00_00.emevd.dcx
|
--> \msg
| |
| --> \engus
| |
| --> \item.msgbnd.dcx
|
--> \param
|
--> \gameparam
|
--> \gameparam.parambnd.dcx

With that structure, the Sekiro Mod Engine's default configuration should run this mod right up.

To uninstall, just delete those files.



COMPATIBILITY & TECHNICAL CRAP
You should be able to install the mod at any point during your playthrough. Note that if you already used the Jinza's Jizo and/or the Mibu Pilgrimage Balloon you can't get them back until your next game cycle. Other than that, everything should be smooth sailing.

Conversely, uninstalling the mod shouldn't have any noticeable effect in your ongoing playthrough. You'll keep the items you acquired (i.e., if you stocked up on Emblems, they'll all still be there after uninstalling) and all other item and game behaviours will revert back to normal. Once you uninstall the mod you will be greeted by a tutorial popup the next time you access each menu, which could be a mild annoyance but, hey, that's vanilla Sekiro for you.

As you can probably guess, this mod involves extensive param tweaking, which means it most definitely isn't going to be compatible with pretty much anything out of the box, with the exception of cosmetic mods. Any mod that uses gameparam.parambnd.dcx will certainly clash with this mod, especially if they operate on EquipParamGoods.

I tried to hunt down and understand exactly what each mod is doing, so that anyone could further improve this and/or just bring it closer to their personal tastes, and here's what I gathered so far.

The files involved in the mod are:

\event\common.emevd.dcx
\event\common_func.emevd.dcx
\event\m10_00_00_00.emevd.dcx
\event\m11_00_00_00.emevd.dcx
\event\m11_01_00_00.emevd.dcx
\event\m11_02_00_00.emevd.dcx

These are exclusively used by No Tutorials https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/113 (TKGP). I couldn't find out what is being modified in them, though.

\msg\engus\item.msgbnd.dcx

This one is exclusively used by Reusable Jinza's Jizo Statue https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/517 (Lhiandrow). The mod edits "?????.fmg" and "??????.fmg" to change the description/name of the Jizo, and adds new ones for the "empty" version.

\param\gameparam\gameparam.parambnd.dcx

gameparam.parambnd.dcx is -of course- the one file where most of the magic is happening. The specific params being altered are:

EquipParamGoods
EquipParamWeapon
MenuTutorialParam
shopLineupParam
SpEffectParam

EquipParamGoods in particular is the one bearing the most tweaking. If you wanna customize things you'll definitely need to get Yapped 1.1.2 involved. Below I'm breaking down the tweaks as detailed as I can.

Free Spirit Emblems https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/463 (manawan7)
gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> shopLineupParam
I don't know exactly what is modified here, but this is the only mod to affect shopLineupParam, so you can just merge that into an already modded gameparam.parambnd.dcx using Param Assembler. https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/224

Finger Whistle doesn't use Spirit Emblems https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/270 (WT3WD/Lexar's)
gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> EquipParamWeapon -> row 79000 -> unk83 -> 0
Use Yapped 1.1.2 to edit that value. On the other hand, this is the only mod to work on EquipParamWeapon, so you can just merge that into an already modded gameparam.parambnd.dcx using Param Assembler. https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/224

No Tutorials https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/113 (TKGP)
gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> MenuTutorialParam
Again, I don't know what is being changed here, but since this is the only mod to affect MenuTutorialParam, you can just merge that into an already modded gameparam.parambnd.dcx using Param Assembler. https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/224

No Pop Ups https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/591 (jasonjulias)
gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> EquipParamGoods -> rows 1000 to 10000 -> unk20 -> 2
Use Yapped 1.1.2 to edit those values. If you use Yapped's "Import Names" option, you'll see that lines 1000 to 10000 involve every item, ability, tool and pretty much anything that pulls up a pop up window. The motherload, as it were. If for some reason the "Import Names" option doesn't work, here's a handy pastebin with all the information you might need. https://pastebin.com/S4dVq57J

Infinite Pilgrimage Balloon https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/596 (jasonjulias)
gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> EquipParamGoods -> row 3640 -> isConsume -> uncheck
Use Yapped 1.1.2 to change that. This gives the Pilgrimage Balloon infinite uses.

gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> SpEffectParam -> row 3601, 3611, 3621, 3631 and 3641 to 3647 -> effectEndurance -> enter value in seconds
Use Yapped 1.1.2 to edit those values. This extends the duration for all balloons.

Reusable Jinza's Jizo Statue https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/517 (Lhiandrow)
gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> EquipParamGoods -> row 3721
Use Yapped 1.1.2 to edit that row. Note that the mod changes quite a few fields to modify the funcionality of the statue, so you might need a vanilla gameparam.parambnd.dcx to compare the values. The mod also adds an "empty" version of the item (row 3722).

Infinite Tanto https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/173 (pappsy314)
gameparam.parambnd.dcx -> EquipParamGoods -> row 3800 -> isConsume -> uncheck
Use Yapped 1.1.2 to change that.



CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
jasonjulias, Lhiandrow, manawan7, pappsy314, TKGP and WT3WD/Lexar's for making the mods I used.
JKAnderson for Yapped.
Yohnnny for Param Assembler.
katalash for Sekiro Mod Engine.
And of course, From Software for this great, great game.