DSR Vanilla Refined

IDEA

  I approached the creation of this mod as if I was on the official team and was tasked with refining and improving the game as best I could before its release - so in an alternate timeline I'd consider this to be the definitive version of the game. It was my task to not make the game harder or easier - just less frustrating and more flexible. Nothing was changed without critical forethought and rigorous testing in-game. If you want to know all of the changes and the reasoning behind them, you can read the text file included in the zip download, but you'll understand the changes mostly just by playing the game. Here's a summary of what to expect:

IMPROVED RINGS - If I've done my job right, you'll be enticed to try out and swap out different ring combinations as you play, and it will feel rewarding to do so. You'll be pleased with how useful and tactical nearly every ring is.

TWEAKED ENEMY ENCOUNTERS - While most of the game's encounters are left unchanged, certain choke points and duplicated enemies have been altered to provide a cleaner run from the bonfire to the boss room, and should feel more logical given the areas you're in. Isolated spikes of frustration that result in preventable deaths have been ironed out.

BOW GAMEPLAY - Not just a change to bow damage and scaling, but a change to bullet params themselves. Arrows fly further, faster and feel more impactful to shoot. Bows can be upgraded to either scale with STR, DEX, INT or FAI equally while preserving their physical damage, or upgraded to deal pure fire, lightning or magic damage (you'll still need the required embers for each upgrade types). More details can be found in the text file provided with the zip download.

GREEN BLOSSOMS - Green blossoms are no longer an infinite resource that increases stamina regen. They are now a very rare HP regen item that can eliminate the problem of getting wailed on while drinking from your estus flask, if only for a short period. Hold on to your green blossoms, because they're in very short supply and are extremely hard to farm.

IMPROVED SHADOW ARMOR SET - Now a full utility outfit, granting an improved ring of fog effect (Shadow Mask), flip ring effect (Shadow Armor), quiet movement (Shadow Leggings) and a hornet ring effect (Shadow Bracers). It won't really make the game easier but it's very useful.

CRYSTAL LIZARDS - Crystal lizards are now much easier to kill, so grab your bow and have fun hunting them.

EXTRA TREASURES - Some outfits