Souls Betwixt-A DS2 Gameplay Overhaul (SOTFS)

Dark Souls 1, TWO

There are many things I have always liked about DS1 that never returned in DS2. Consistent iframes on rolls. The strong stat scaling. The physical armor and poise system. All of these things bother me a lot as I play DS2 more, and through a little bit of annoying work, Ive managed to revert most of these to be very in-line with how they behaved in DS1.

This mod includes several projects I've made before, already packaged into the mod.

-A Poise mod I made that adds a .dll to bring back DS1's 6-second poise refill timer

-A Defense mod I made that adds a .dll to give armor significant protection against physical attacks, being extremely useful for using heavy armor

-A mod I made that replaces the event-data for player animations to remove the ADP/AGL-dependent iframes from the player roll and sets it to a constant 11 I-frames as DS1 had.

-The bulk of this is from a mod I made privately for myself several years ago, and have used exclusively when replaying DS2. I've updated some bits of it here and there.

Unfortunately, the one thing I have not changed is the crazy amount of enemies in DS2 that deal hyperstagger, which ignores poise. This would require much more work, and I cant justify the investment.

Additionally, I recommend bundling this mod with several other mods.

Double-Click Fix by is a .dll mod that removes the bug where the game resets player preferences for "Ignore Double Click". This bug requires a player to manually reset the option every time DS2 is launched. Not having the option toggled will lead to DS2 creating immense input lag as it waits for a second click after every LMB and RMB press before executing an action.

Requirements and Recommendations

This mod should be compatible with almost any .dll mod. As for param mods... mileage may vary.

DS3 Lazy Loader - needed to load multiple .dll mods

DS2 Double Click Fix SOTFS - strongly recommended to fix input lag from double-click inputs

A music mod of your choice. There are several good ones out there that gets rid of the generic and underwhelming OST or the awful DS2 sound effects.

When DS2 seamless co-op releases, I will look to see if its going to be something thats compatible with this mod, and adjust instructions accordingly so they can be installed together and so that people can play this mod with their friends.

Installation

Since this mod uses multiple .dll files, you will need to use the DS3 Lazy Loader to play with them.

Install Lazy Loader into your DS2 game directory next to the .exe, and then drop the contents of Souls Betwixt into your game directory. dllMods should contain multiple .dlls, modengine.ini should be in the same folder as the .exe, and dinput8.dll and the Souls Betwixt folder should also be in the same folder as the .exe.

THIS WILL NOT WORK WITH PIRATED OR OUTDATED COPIES OF DS2. These copies have modified .exes that will not work with some of my .dll mods. 

Changes

-All rolls now have 11 i-frames regardless of ADP/AGL

-Physical Defense now follows a new formula where heavy armor can protect the player from several hundred points of damage on heavier attacks, making armor finally useful

-Most weapons (excluding magic weapons, non-scaling weapons, whips, and crossbows) have reduced 15% attack and doubled scaling. What this means is an, on average, 15-20% attack buff for the standard level range, and scaling has moved from being 25% of total attack to closer to 50%. This means you should actually take care of your dump stat, and you'll see returns.

-Poise now refills to full after 6 seconds of not being damaged.

-Poise numbers on all armors have been buffed. The balance may be a bit wonky here but with the amount of hyperstagger attacks in DS2, I am not super worried about poise being a bit busted.

-NEW BONFIRES (these bonfires are not linked to bosses afaik, so do not burn ascetics at them expecting a level reset):

Lost Bastille/Sinners Rise now has a bonfire before the Lost Sinner

Brightstone Cove Tseldora now has a bonfire before Dukes Dear Freja

Shaded Ruins now has a bonfire before Scorpioness Najka

Drangleic Castle now has a bonfire before the front gate, near where you meet Emerald Herald

-Shrine of Amana now has a bonfire before Demon of Song

-Undead Crypt now has a bonfire next to Agdayne

-Undead Crypt now has a bonfire before Velstadt

Aldia's Keep now has a bonfire before the Guardian Dragon

Dragon Shrine now has a bonfire before Ancien