Elden Ring Dungeon Crawler Mod v1.0

Removes the need for overworld traversal/exploration by relocating all overworld unique items and upgrades to dungeons, and adds warps to dungeons to the Grace menu.

## Elden Ring - Dungeon Crawler

This is a mod for Elden Ring that aims to streamline replays of the game, by switching the focus almost entirely to dungeon exploration instead of open world traversal. The main design goal is to remove the tedious parts of riding around on Torrent and instead encourage fully exploring dungeons and actually interacting with the core gameplay.

I would NOT recommend using this mod (or any mod, to be honest) for a first playthrough of the game, as I believe the open world provides a fun and valuable experience in the first run at least, and you would be missing out on a big part of the game.

Note that this mod should be played on a fresh new character, or on a new NG+ cycle. It will not work properly in the middle of a normal run, due to its dependency on custom flags among other factors.

## Main Features

- All unique items (weapons, talismans, etc) and upgrade items (smithing stones, flask upgrades, etc) normally found in the overworld are instead relocated to dungeons or turned into boss rewards. These additional items are added to existing pickups, prioritizing the more "boring" pickups like consumables. Items are generally moved to dungeons in the same region, or at least to areas that are close in terms of the intended progression/difficulty.

- As of the release of this mod, major dungeons, minor dungeons and overworld bosses are all targets for this relocation, but I plan to add an alternative version of the mod soon that focuses solely on major locations, namely "legacy" dungeons and the larger overworld dungeons like Caria Manor, for players who aren't too fond of the minor dungeons.
   
- You can find a list of relocated item locations here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kBZWAw5r_skTDoyWELZ4dyEreE0dbURkZdbbgl8D5Ho/edit?gid=636128456#gid=636128456
   
- While the open areas (where you can ride Torrent) of Siofra River and Deeproot Depths still count as main locations and thus their items are not relocated, due to these areas being closer to overworld areas in gameplay terms they also do not have any new items added.

- The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is fully supported, but also optional. Items from the base game are only relocated to base game dungeons/bosses, and the same goes for the DLC, so the two parts of the game are completely isolated. Your first access to the DLC is through the cocoon just like in the normal game, and the warp options at the Site of Grace will not appear until then.

- Various warp options have been added to the Site of Grace menu, which allow you to warp directly to dungeons and overworld boss locations, as well as track your completion of them and also provide an indication of their relative difficulty level. New warps are unlocked in a very similar way to the normal game's progression, with some changes for streamlining purposes. Some examples:

- You start with access to all Limgrave, Liurnia and Caelid locations, as these areas are fully explorable by just navigating the overworld normally.
   
- To unlock Altus locations, you can either defeat two Shardbearers, go through the Ruin-Strewn Precipice, or use the Raya Lucaria Iron Virgin method and then escape Volcano Manor.
   
- Access to certain locations like Nokstella or Consecrated Snowfield has been simplified. The former unlocks as soon as you obtain the Fingerslayer Blade (which does not require engaging with Ranni's quest in this mod), and the latter only requires defeating Commander Niall, rather than obtaining the two halves of the secret medallion.
   
- In short, if a dungeon is normally accessible via overworld traversal at that point in the game, it will be available as a warp. If it normally requires getting past a dungeon or boss to reach, you will still need to do that to unlock it.

- Most unique items obtained from NPC sidequests have been duplicated and placed in dungeons as well, to provide an alternative way of obtaining them without having to follow NPC quests.

- Random drops from enemies that are primarily found in the open world have also been added to dungeons as guaranteed pickups.

## Additional features

- Multiple quality of life options have been added to the Site of Grace menu, like weapon upgrading, Spirit Tuning, and direct access to the Twin Maiden Husks shop. Note that you still need to hand in Bell Bearings at their actual shop in the Roundtable, before the respective options appear in the Grace menu. For technical reasons, the ability to give Bell Bearings had to be removed from the Grace instance of the shop menu.

- NPC Bell Bearings have also been added to dungeons, to allow access to their shops without visiting them. Also, merchants inside dungeons will give you their Bell Bearings by talking to them.

- Visibility conditions for certain shop items have been adjusted. For example, Boiled Crab is available from Blackguard Boggart's Bell Bearing shop when Altus is unlocked, even if you've never spoken to him.

- You automatically get various useful early game items like the Flask of Wondrous Physick and the Spirit Calling Bell as soon as you reach the Stranded Graveyard and get your HP/FP flasks.

- As you will never meet Melina without resting at overworld Sites of Grace, the parts of the game that require her to be present have been modified to get around this. So if you ever wanted to do a truly maidenless playthrough, this is your chance.

- Related to the last point, the Roundtable Hold is available for warping as soon as you reach the Stranded Graveyard.

- You can warp out of most dungeons even before defeating the boss.

- You're still free to explore the open world for any purpose, such as completing NPC quests or obtaining crafting materials. For this purpose, all overworld Sites of Grace are unlocked for warping as soon as that region is unlocked. Note that most dungeons require using the Site of Grace "Warp" options in order to reach them for the first time.

- Activated Great Runes are awarded immediately when defeating the respective Shardbearer, without needing to visit the Divine Towers. Also, they are kept through New Game+ cycles.

- The NPC gank fight near the end of the DLC has been made optional, as its difficulty depends heavily on NPC quest interaction. Completing it is the only way to obtain certain NPC items, however.

- New Game+ cycles have been rebalanced in order to make earlier enemies more challenging, and they also award more runes in line with this. The double multiplier that is applied to standard physical damage in NG+2 and above is also removed. An optional regulation.bin is provided in the mod files if you want to restore the original NG+ parameters.

## Installation

1. You need Mod Engine 2 to use this mod. It has been extensively tested with version 2.1 of ModEngine, so that's the one I recommend at the moment. Remember to extract the downloaded .zip file first (right click > Extract All). Note that Mod Engine auto-detects your Elden Ring install location (as long as it's a legitimate Steam copy), so you don't need to put it in the game installation folder, and in fact it may cause problems if you do.

2. Once you have Mod Engine 2 set up, extract the Dungeon Crawler .zip file, open the resulting folder, and then copy the CONTENTS of the Dungeon Crawler "mod" folder (NOT the folder itself) to inside Mod Engine 2's own "mod" folder. If you end up with a "mod" folder inside another "mod" folder, you've done it wrong.

3. Make sure Steam is running in the background, and click the launchmod_eldenring.bat file to launch the game with the mod. If nothing happens, you may have a non-standard installation of Elden Ring, file permission issues with the game install folder, antivirus software blocking Mod Engine, or other unknown issues. I recommend following this troubleshooting document to try and solve the issue: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DTnsVJrbhzsFYTouix2iAH_-RQ491rKxJO-d-oGEXPE/edit?tab=t.0

4. Verify that the title screen has changed to the Dungeon Crawler one, and then start a new character.

## Uninstallation

1. Simply remove the mod's contents from Mod Engine 2's "mod" folder, or just run the game directly via Steam.

## Important notes

- As stated near the beginning, this mod has been designed to be used with a fresh new character or from the start of a NG+ cycle. Many aspects will not work properly if used with an existing character, and it has a chance of messing with the progression on that character.

- This mod has been tested with version 1.16 of Elden Ring, the latest patch as of writing this. Older versions of the game will not work properly and I cannot provide support for them.

- You only need Mod Engine 2 to make this mod work.
- When using Mod Engine 2, this mod doesn't change the actual game files.
- Mod Engine 2 automatically disables EasyAntiCheat when the game is run through launchmod_eldenring.bat
- You cannot connect to FromSoftware servers or online features.
- Thus launching and using the mod through ME2 should not get you banned.
    
- Using the modded character save when playing online may get you banned!

- Compatibility with other mods is not guaranteed.
   
- This mod changes multiple aspects of the game and many resources the game uses: item locations, map data, event scripts, talk scripts, title screen, text data...
   
- Because of this, you cannot use this mod straight out of the box together with many other mods.
 
- Getting this mod to work with other mods probably requires manual work and understanding of how mods internally work. That said, merging other mods into this one should probably be fine as long as they don't involve changes to item locations, events, map or talk data, so for example things like most param edits or cosmetic/moveset/AI changes. But again, I can't provide any guarantees or support for using this mod in conjunction with others.

- Due to the scope of the mod, there are probably some bugs that I've missed. From my own testing and playing the mod, I haven't had any major issues, but don't hesitate to report any bugs you find to the Bugs section on Nexus Mods. The more information you include, the better.