I've enjoyed watching you play through this mod, and especially this summation of your pros and cons at the end. For anyone, thinking about getting this mod (like me), this is a great help!! Thank you!
@@l0remipsum991 Actually, kinda, yeah; Bloodborne and a few Dark Souls bosses had a lot of patterns and moments where you could take devastating amounts of their otherwise tough hides out of them if you learned the patterns and got the timing right. That's just not something replicated here for that difficulty spike; it's just a unbalanced, one-sided slog.
@@tomisabum yeah, dark souls bosses were hard because challenging movesets and only set openings you had to learn.... not being massive damage sponges that and turn around and one hit you in a second, punishing you for a mistake you didn’t even make. Granted the mod author earns some slack because that’s really hard to replicate in Skyrim, but this isn’t the way, those final bosses should have 1/10 the health they do, they should have a lot more stagger penalty, and reduced damage. Completing this mod’s final boss sadly, feels a lot more like fighting the ebony warrior with no armour than it does fighting a dark souls boss. I would’ve heavily suggested adding wildcat, improved combat AI, and INPA sekiro combat or a dark souls combat overhaul to this mod. And then given the bosses more personality and moves, give them powers from the game, like blizzard and the likes. That’s just my take though
hEre's the thing. The Steel Ring of Protection boosts defense, The Ring of Favor boosts Health and HP. George kept wearing the Ring of Favor, hence why they kept mercing him. There really are times where its important to read item descriptions in an RPG.@@user-ty4uj1gz7g
[Paraphrased] "There's not-hand-holding, and then there's not giving you much to go on." Very well put! Side note since you mentioned it: In one of the more recent updates to Vigilant, VICN added *some* quest markers to the fourth act (there's still quite a bit of indirect, hidden locations to be explored and treasures to be uncovered by the player).
Heck, even Vigilant gives you some guidance in Act 4 now...Whereas before, you didn't even have quest markers now you have 8-9 of them with a simple statement with each one. The statement doesn't tell you what they specifically are (one for instance is 'When the dream no longer needs its dreamer'), but they give you an idea of where to go.
to me there is five levels of the comunicating order to things in a game: give the player no idea what he's doing or where he's going. give them notes on roughly where to go without directly telling them. giving them dialogue and notes to tell them where they're goal lies. telling them exactly where to go and what to do with little choice on detours (handholding). give them a set linear path no other direction possible (railroading)
40 min of trying does truly justify god mode to finish. Everyone that runs into super tough mod bosses does it from time to time. There is a hidden boss fight in Maids 2 against Salaquine. She is lv 250 and my character was only lv 45 hahaha, yeah I went god mode.
I took him down after dying 4 times using double dremora conjuration(they also got one shotted though) to distract him and dragon aspect to backup marked for death shout. But man that was intense.
Hey there! I just finished Darkend and I confirm that the king is OP unless you use some of the rings that you can find in the mod in fact. The fight becomes more fair but still, it’s still a very difficult one.
I love Darkend, I love how you have to find your way through the new land and getting new pieces of lore through books. While I did enjoy this aspect I wish still there was more, especially near the end. Honestly at that point there is nothing, no books adding new bits of lore (that I could find) it’s just boss fights. I did enjoy them I wished there was more opportunities to learn about the land you are in. I wish there was at least a couple npcs that you could interact with or more notes and journals at the least to read from. Towards the end it felt like there was no point in going on because you aren’t learning anything, just fighting. The beginning of the mod is great, because they give you some bits of info, but then gradually it becomes less and less.
So I first played this mod during the first covid lockdown in April or so, on legendary diff. (Because I hate myself) My character is level 81, maxed out magic resist and armor (full daedric). The only reason I managed to actually beat the bosses without tgm is because I min-maxed. Alchemy-Enchanting-Smithing loop + Black Book: Sallow Regent + Ahzidal's Armor + Vampire Necromage to build a dual wielding warrior and fortify one handed + fortify destructiion potions for the enchantments on the weapons. (I use Vamp+Necromage because it honestly, makes sense to me and don't consider it a glitch, I can even make sense of it from a roleplaying perspective. I cured myself after crafting the gear and potions though) Only thing I didn't do was Fortify Resto thing because it's obviously a bug. The only way to win was drink the potions then run up in his face just as he sits up and use slow time. He was dead from 4 dual-wielding power attacks and hadn't managed to hit me yet. Any hit from him or the royal champions were one hit KO's. If you don't min-max I think it's quite impossible to beat this guy without god mode. Maybe a sneak archer could grind him down a lot while being undetected, but he definitely needs good damage otherwise he'd be there all day.
For the Royal Champions, it was honestly tougher, because I had to save my shout for the archer to stagger him. Basically had to sprint power attack the melee guy and stagger him right where he was to avoid arrows to the face. Luckily he went down in one single dual wielding power attack with potions. Then I had to dance around the arrows until I had a clear shot with a Fus at the archer, stagger him and move in for another power attack, that luckily brought him down too. I found them harder because there were two and I have no incentives to sneak, and any hit on me would be a one hit kill. But damn did it feel satisfying finishing the mod. I put on the crown, sat on the throne and took a selfie (Screenshot). XD
I think the "force grab" that vampire lords use can be used against the king cause I use a mod which makes telekinesis also affect actors and it works exactly the same way as the vampire lord telekinetic grab, and that's how I beat the king and the two shadows, grab, throw and hit them a few times before they get up, rinse and repeat
Just beat the mod. Was happy to see that I wasnt the only one who thought the human boss fights were horribly balanced. Went thru the mod at level 89 on Master. Everything was perfectly balanced, some fights I had to do over quite a few times but it never felt bad. Until the two human boss fights. I had to drop the difficulty down to easy because i was so fed up with it. Honestly this mod would be damn near perfect if not for those two boss fights.
I get where you are coming from, but personally I love this mod as a final test for a late game op character. It's very fun for me to have a super difficult boss that forces me to bring out all the tricks and op abilities I have learned along my journey. But I also play with perk overhaul mods like ordinator and spell mods like mysticism and Odin, so granted I have more op tools than usual
Just came to this brilliant mod and have used your playthrough after playing each section to make sure I found everything. I found Darkend early and had to go back to the sewers! I always use sneak archer and don't find the huge problems with the bosses others who just use a sword find. The sneak and run attack is a valid technique, after all, the game wouldn't allow it if it wasn't! Love your commentaries. You are my go to guy when looking at which new mods to try.
So personally as a Souls player these enemies were way too hard. The thing that makes dark souls great is that if you die it feels like you were almost there to beating that enemy. It’s a balance between difficulty and skill. The shadow bosses and the king there’s no back and forth. Instant killing you with basic attacks is more than any souls boss would do.
I remember when I played this mod, I very much enjoyed exploring the Pharos and it's environs, even without much of any context clues, it was just very fun. The tower of Darkend, however, I just felt dragged on too long and tedious, and the champion bosses at the end didn't make that any better. The Forgotten Mountain area after the tower was itself quite fun to explore and find secrets in, but I feel would have been better if I wasn't following the drag of the tower, which made me just want to finish things. Or ended by the king. Regarding both sets of final bosses, I agree, they're well outside the realm of reasonable difficulty levels. The only reason I was able to kill them at all was due to maxing sneak and one-handed perks with copious use of muffle and invisibility and a high-damage dagger for stacking backstab bonuses. And lots of running away and hiding to lose agro.
13:30 You wouldn't be able to block that anyway. That was a "cinematic kill" move.... Some GENIUS at Bethesda programmed it to where if an attack would kill you. You basically get command grabbed by the enemy. Oh, and this is a frame 1 sort of thing. So again, literally no avoiding it. Even if the enemy is seeming out of range. They'll just teleport to be right in front of you to kill you. Honestly... it might be good to grab a mod that disables those for NPCs. Since it's just a broken mechanic in general.
Thank you for making these videos! I played ~2 hours of Darkend yesterday as a level fifty-something stealth mage, and even though I never died it still didn't seem to be working for me. Even early on the enemies seemed to simply have too much health, and that didn't make it challenging in an interesting way, just tedious. So I watched this to decide if it's worth continuing. I think watching you do it was more enjoyable than playing it myself would be, so I think I will be fast travelling my way back to Skyrim (or loading a save if it won't let me). Honestly, I think one of my biggest problems with Darkend was how dark it was in a lighting sense (and I was using a magical glowy helmet from Bruma!). I have yet to play any Dark Souls myself, but from what I've seen it seems like the darkness of Dark Souls is more from the colors of objects than the lighting, so there isn't the eye strain aspect. I got a headache playing Darkend and I'm pretty sure it was from a combination of the dark lighting, the excessively busy textures on the buildings, and the narrow, disorienting spiral stairs. It was definitely better to watch someone else play this so that I didn't have to be on the lookout for enemies and whatnot. Thank you for stopping to read journals and notes! When I watch friends play videogames, they act like wanting to read the notes is some weird completionist quirk I have. I just wanna understand what's going on!
I can see now why those +1 rings in this mod is so OP broken, it's to balance these broken af bosses lol. All 4 +1 rings can be found in the Forgotten Mountain area. 3 in the hub with the 3 paths, where one path led to the dragon fight, and one in the swamp.
As a conjurer build, I don't mind the difficulty (inherently cheap builds trivialize combat, sure. But my skelly squad has _style_ , dammit). What I do mind was the complete lack of direction. So even if it makes me seem scrubby, I gotta agree about the hand-holding bit. The EldenSoulsBorneDiesTwice series at least hints at where to go by virtue of NPC dialogue and level design that guides the player towards their next destination while at the same time letting them go off the beaten path if desired. Darkend, well... Look, I love Pharos' atmosphere as well as the lore behind the incidents plaguing the island, but it's just background dressing. It doesn't actually guide you; just gives you context on the situation. Wandering around the island for keys hidden in places nowhere near where they're supposed to be used is... it just makes the mod wear out it's welcome. You can be intuitive without being obvious, y'know? Again, I can't comment about the combat due to using mods which basically overhaul it (Imagine if Devil May Cry 5's V could summon an army of bullshit instead of only 3 minions at a time. That's more or less what I have going on). Regardless, I love what this mod tries to do. And overall I enjoyed the sheer amount of effort and detail that went into it. There were just some glaring negatives, to me, that marred an otherwise flawless gem.
I personally think this mod is perfectly made for those who are using custom combat systems and animations like ADXP+MCO and other things. I have a level 57 character who primarily uses hand to hand in normal playthrough (with custom martial arts animation), however going into this mod I just knew I had to switch to using melee again and by the end of the journey in Pharos my One Handed and Block all reached 100 when it was only like 17-18 in the beginning. Elden Counter and Parry, Timed Block, Hellblade Block too, Combat System Overhaul where you can cancel your attack and block, I think these honestly helped me tremendously against these difficult bosses since once you parried their attacks they are staggered and in timed block you actually can counter attack parrying them. Honestly my only suggestion for the mod author is to ask the player the first time they're if they're using custom combat systems or vanilla because then if the player uses custom combats with custom animations or something similar the difficulty should remain the same however if the player is using vanilla then the mod will spread useful and actually helpful items across the map instead. No handholding I know but at least give the options to players! Thank you for the playthrough, helped guided me as well when I get lost several times!
Great tour George :) I enjoyed seeing this mod. But, I'm glad you played it because I never will. Just too much darkness and gloom for my taste. However, it was a great watch for the Halloween season :) I have OP demigod type characters set up that would make short work of these enemies, whereas you have a more vanilla play style. I run those kind of plays as well, usually for challenges. No one would enjoy seeing video of my OP stealth runs. So, I certainly appreciate you soldering on through what had to be an horrific experience. After 8 episodes, I'm sure you're relieved it's all over :) I know I would be. I recently ran all of the main quest of Midwood Isles. Other than the fetch quest that never seemed to end, it was a very enjoyable mod. Thanks for the continued recommendations. I'll be giving the Falskaar mod a go soon and then maybe Rigmor too. Two quest mods that I have enjoyed immensely that I don't believe you have covered are Moonpath to Elsweyr and Helgen Reborn. I would very much like to see you play through these mods. Either would be an exceptional breath of fresh air after Darkend. So, please consider a visit to Elsweyr or rebuilding Helgen for a future Skyrim Saturday mod play. Unlike other rebuild mods, Helgen gets rebuilt by the NPC's while the player goes off on various quests. So, you get to have all the fun while they do all the building for you. Adventure on my friend, Phat :)
That last boss looks stupidly broken. There's no point in trying to experiment on him like using instant kill effects or ragdolls. Fight cheating with cheating.
Yeah, it'd be different if there was some sort of world element you interacted with to get them into a vulnerable state, or if their combat method had a pattern that if you learned you could beat with enough skill. But it's just an hp tank with bloated damage, sadly.
Yeah, don't feel bad about this at all. From a game design perspective this is way off. You mentioned you haven't played any of the Souls game, but I keep comparing this more to Bloodborne and how they were more generous with the stagger mechanics opening up chances to defeat very tough bosses. Check out the Blood Starved Beast fights sometime on TH-cam; actually, the Game Grump's Arin had a really good run on them that's worth watching. Shows a big difference in tough boss design than what you see here.
Just wanted to mention that even though the shield can be disenchanted, Auriel's Shield Knockback Enchantment can't be place on anything. The same goes for the ring. And I checked on Torment & Despair. Even though they can be smithed, they can't be enchanted. So I just want to say that the authors of this mod are the biggest teases of all time. lol
Because they are already enchanted with a scripted effect. Constant Drain Health. Thats why he kept getting one shot'd. This mod is meant to test your smithing and enchanting if nothing else.
I might be wrong but I think the cause of the curse/"plague" was removing the "teleport" stone from the ancien island/tower (what you found in the ship and used at the beggining of the mod to teleport to the pharos island) The commander came to the island(4E197) to cure his wife, and for that he needed a lot of "slave" (whom proventus used for his experiments) For new slaves he needed valuable resources (what he used to trade) so he started excavating in the ancient part(4E198) of the island(where the "bad" guys(original natives?) lived (for some reason)) and what woke them up. (Sorry for my "amazing" english it's not my first language) (Also I finished this mod a few days ago and the only tactic which helped me against the old king was bashing him away with my shield (shield charge perk) and while he was on the floor I damaged him. (I was curious and checked it, he was lvl 150 and not lvl 116(for me at least))
Agree with many of your points, George. It's positives are great, but I found all the exploration just to find needed keys pointless, irritating, and not the way to encourage level exploration. The story was good, if incomplete, but couldn't make up for what I disliked about the mod. Thanks for playing it!
if you want to see what agony and what not does, there are two versions within the game files. one that drops says what it said when George got his drop. These two other variants do not drop......
Honestly, I think the best way to beat the bosses when lower than level 80 is to be a sneak archer. This was the first mod I ever downloaded, and I was playing as a level 40 something sneak archer with an ebony bow. I was level 100 in sneak and archery, but it still took me six tries to kill the two shadow guys. That fight to me felt worth it in the end due to getting torment, but it was still awful, and the only way I made it though was remaining hidden the entire time. For me, the last boss was really easy to hide from, and therefore easy to kill. I would definitely suggest not even trying this mod if you are lower than 50
the thing about this Steel of Protection Ring, it would have kept them from ONE shotting you constantly. It raises/increases PHYSICAL Defense. They killed you because you kept wearing the ring that boosts HP.
I always felt that the build up for this mod would of been good if it had to deal with Peryite. The explanation of the plague and just the way order has to be established with undeath. The comparison you made to Act 4 Vigilant and this is spot on. Vicn gives the idea you have a path from A to B but how to achieve that is the mystery you need to uncover. I agree that Darkend lacks this aspect and there is a lot in this mod that derails the purpose of why even go on this quest. The atmosphere is what drew me into this mod similar to you. Now the most important question George... Which mod is next? One of Vicn's? Grey Cowl of Nocturnal?
BTW, The shield can be disenchanted so you can put Auriel's Shield Knockback on a better shield. And there was something else I already disenchanted but can't remember what. The Ceremonial Claymore can be disenchanted for a "visuals" perk which I'm thinking is just to increase the value of something. Zweihander can be disenchanted for "bleeding damage" but it doesn't say how much damage and for how long. Does anyone have a way to see the mechanics of it so I know if it's worth disenchanting?
I have to wonder if my game is glitching. When I fought the dragon it had an absolutely insane health bar. I have ordinator/wildcat/apocalypse in my game which is what’s making me question this. I used the “avenging wraith” spell which gets 150% of the stats of whatever killed it last, and after the last guardian killed it I looked, and the wraith had like 30k health. If that’s “balanced” then good lord. I don’t want to be forced to make op weapons, especially for a mod that suggests level 15…
*POSSIBLE SPOILERS* I've just finished this mod and I'm curious if anyone knows the real story behind darkend. I'm aware of the story about the commander and his wife and how she died to some sort of illness that even their doctor Pretorious couldn't cure. Which I figure that those Plague trolls might have something to do about it. Those that have played and weren't aware, they reside just along the coast to the right of Searock Castle and the nearby cave. It's quite interesting that where you fight said trolls there's a broken boat nearby possibly indicating someone brought them to the island. Back to the point, if anyone knows any part of the story feel free to pitch in I'd love hear it :)
You could have mods like ultimate combat, combat gameplay overhaul to make this experience more "souls like" but anyways had fun watching looking forward for next😁
What level were you at this point? I had to summon my followers in the fight with the champion before this area, he was consistently one-shooting me in QWEST (I'm at level 68 now... but there's also that wildcat combat rehaul going on, ordinator ruling my perks and experience levelling).
The last few bosses and the dragons are really disappointing and just dumb in general. I know the mod wants to be difficult so it can be like souls, but souls is fair. There’s rarely bosses made in souls that have no real way to combat them. Even the most difficult bosses in the series will never force you to cheese them. That wasn’t the case with these bosses. It’s sad cause I actually really dig this mod other than these enemies. Like the first half of the mod is so atmospheric, it’s really great, but the second half just loses that spark for me. Sort of like the first dark souls I guess
I'm finally playing through Dark Souls 1 now and I'm getting close to the end. It's a game where if you're getting one-shotted or can't do damage to bosses it means you probably need to be a higher level, improve gear, etc. All of which can easily be done because of respawning enemies. In the case of Darkend, it seems from some comments that the bosses scale with your level, meaning that they'll always be several levels above you, hence why they're so ridiculously strong at higher levels. It becomes a game of "well can I land these 800 hits on the final boss without him hitting me once?" which really isn't fun at all.
Jkrojmal, good work, but seriously making a broken final bosses isnt cool or shows your genius or complexity bs, it is bad game balancing and lazy to avoid interesting fights.
Whats worse is it could be done; I hate it when good mods, to say nothing of good games, fall flat on their face right before the finish line with stuff like this.
I do disagree that the mod is too vague in terms of where to go. The little notes scattered around point you in a direction. A few notes around the early town pointed you towards the church, which you traversed and exited. In the castle there's a few notes mentioning the magical trees on the north of the island, getting you up there. Finally, at the northernmost part of the island, you find notes talking about the reconstruction of a destroyed bridge to the ruins, with hints that there may be some ancient evil within. This style is directly out of Dark Souls, where you read item descriptions and stuff to figure things out about the world, and ultimately find your own way through vague hints. Also, you should use VioLens to turn off NPC killmoves on the player. It makes everything so much better, even if you're not fighting OP enemies.
I've enjoyed watching you play through this mod, and especially this summation of your pros and cons at the end. For anyone, thinking about getting this mod (like me), this is a great help!! Thank you!
In order to make anything souls-like, people need to understand how to make damage received/damage dealt right. Thanks for playing, George.
damage dealt right aka butt pokes lol
@@l0remipsum991 Actually, kinda, yeah; Bloodborne and a few Dark Souls bosses had a lot of patterns and moments where you could take devastating amounts of their otherwise tough hides out of them if you learned the patterns and got the timing right. That's just not something replicated here for that difficulty spike; it's just a unbalanced, one-sided slog.
@@tomisabum yeah, dark souls bosses were hard because challenging movesets and only set openings you had to learn.... not being massive damage sponges that and turn around and one hit you in a second, punishing you for a mistake you didn’t even make.
Granted the mod author earns some slack because that’s really hard to replicate in Skyrim, but this isn’t the way, those final bosses should have 1/10 the health they do, they should have a lot more stagger penalty, and reduced damage.
Completing this mod’s final boss sadly, feels a lot more like fighting the ebony warrior with no armour than it does fighting a dark souls boss.
I would’ve heavily suggested adding wildcat, improved combat AI, and INPA sekiro combat or a dark souls combat overhaul to this mod. And then given the bosses more personality and moves, give them powers from the game, like blizzard and the likes.
That’s just my take though
hEre's the thing. The Steel Ring of Protection boosts defense, The Ring of Favor boosts Health and HP. George kept wearing the Ring of Favor, hence why they kept mercing him. There really are times where its important to read item descriptions in an RPG.@@user-ty4uj1gz7g
[Paraphrased] "There's not-hand-holding, and then there's not giving you much to go on." Very well put!
Side note since you mentioned it: In one of the more recent updates to Vigilant, VICN added *some* quest markers to the fourth act (there's still quite a bit of indirect, hidden locations to be explored and treasures to be uncovered by the player).
I really hope that he covers the newer updates of Vigilant in a let's play
I gotta say, I am DIGGING the feathered dragon look for the Last Guardian Dragon. It makes it look almost prehistoric, like a dinosaur
Heck, even Vigilant gives you some guidance in Act 4 now...Whereas before, you didn't even have quest markers now you have 8-9 of them with a simple statement with each one. The statement doesn't tell you what they specifically are (one for instance is 'When the dream no longer needs its dreamer'), but they give you an idea of where to go.
Yeah, even dark souls would give you some direction, where as this has none
By the end of this mod, George has become Sauron
to me there is five levels of the comunicating order to things in a game: give the player no idea what he's doing or where he's going. give them notes on roughly where to go without directly telling them. giving them dialogue and notes to tell them where they're goal lies. telling them exactly where to go and what to do with little choice on detours (handholding). give them a set linear path no other direction possible (railroading)
40 min of trying does truly justify god mode to finish. Everyone that runs into super tough mod bosses does it from time to time. There is a hidden boss fight in Maids 2 against Salaquine. She is lv 250 and my character was only lv 45 hahaha, yeah I went god mode.
I took him down after dying 4 times using double dremora conjuration(they also got one shotted though) to distract him and dragon aspect to backup marked for death shout.
But man that was intense.
Hey there! I just finished Darkend and I confirm that the king is OP unless you use some of the rings that you can find in the mod in fact. The fight becomes more fair but still, it’s still a very difficult one.
I love Darkend, I love how you have to find your way through the new land and getting new pieces of lore through books. While I did enjoy this aspect I wish still there was more, especially near the end. Honestly at that point there is nothing, no books adding new bits of lore (that I could find) it’s just boss fights. I did enjoy them I wished there was more opportunities to learn about the land you are in. I wish there was at least a couple npcs that you could interact with or more notes and journals at the least to read from. Towards the end it felt like there was no point in going on because you aren’t learning anything, just fighting. The beginning of the mod is great, because they give you some bits of info, but then gradually it becomes less and less.
I myself played Darkend and fought Old King Shadow
not a man to be underestimated, but that crown is very good
Whats the crown do
So I first played this mod during the first covid lockdown in April or so, on legendary diff. (Because I hate myself) My character is level 81, maxed out magic resist and armor (full daedric). The only reason I managed to actually beat the bosses without tgm is because I min-maxed. Alchemy-Enchanting-Smithing loop + Black Book: Sallow Regent + Ahzidal's Armor + Vampire Necromage to build a dual wielding warrior and fortify one handed + fortify destructiion potions for the enchantments on the weapons. (I use Vamp+Necromage because it honestly, makes sense to me and don't consider it a glitch, I can even make sense of it from a roleplaying perspective. I cured myself after crafting the gear and potions though) Only thing I didn't do was Fortify Resto thing because it's obviously a bug. The only way to win was drink the potions then run up in his face just as he sits up and use slow time. He was dead from 4 dual-wielding power attacks and hadn't managed to hit me yet. Any hit from him or the royal champions were one hit KO's. If you don't min-max I think it's quite impossible to beat this guy without god mode. Maybe a sneak archer could grind him down a lot while being undetected, but he definitely needs good damage otherwise he'd be there all day.
For the Royal Champions, it was honestly tougher, because I had to save my shout for the archer to stagger him. Basically had to sprint power attack the melee guy and stagger him right where he was to avoid arrows to the face. Luckily he went down in one single dual wielding power attack with potions. Then I had to dance around the arrows until I had a clear shot with a Fus at the archer, stagger him and move in for another power attack, that luckily brought him down too. I found them harder because there were two and I have no incentives to sneak, and any hit on me would be a one hit kill. But damn did it feel satisfying finishing the mod. I put on the crown, sat on the throne and took a selfie (Screenshot). XD
I think the "force grab" that vampire lords use can be used against the king cause I use a mod which makes telekinesis also affect actors and it works exactly the same way as the vampire lord telekinetic grab, and that's how I beat the king and the two shadows, grab, throw and hit them a few times before they get up, rinse and repeat
Just beat the mod. Was happy to see that I wasnt the only one who thought the human boss fights were horribly balanced. Went thru the mod at level 89 on Master. Everything was perfectly balanced, some fights I had to do over quite a few times but it never felt bad. Until the two human boss fights. I had to drop the difficulty down to easy because i was so fed up with it. Honestly this mod would be damn near perfect if not for those two boss fights.
I get where you are coming from, but personally I love this mod as a final test for a late game op character. It's very fun for me to have a super difficult boss that forces me to bring out all the tricks and op abilities I have learned along my journey. But I also play with perk overhaul mods like ordinator and spell mods like mysticism and Odin, so granted I have more op tools than usual
Just came to this brilliant mod and have used your playthrough after playing each section to make sure I found everything. I found Darkend early and had to go back to the sewers! I always use sneak archer and don't find the huge problems with the bosses others who just use a sword find. The sneak and run attack is a valid technique, after all, the game wouldn't allow it if it wasn't! Love your commentaries. You are my go to guy when looking at which new mods to try.
So personally as a Souls player these enemies were way too hard. The thing that makes dark souls great is that if you die it feels like you were almost there to beating that enemy. It’s a balance between difficulty and skill. The shadow bosses and the king there’s no back and forth. Instant killing you with basic attacks is more than any souls boss would do.
I was personally underwhelmed by their difficulty. I just used some vanilla skyrim shouts and beat every boss no problem
I remember when I played this mod, I very much enjoyed exploring the Pharos and it's environs, even without much of any context clues, it was just very fun. The tower of Darkend, however, I just felt dragged on too long and tedious, and the champion bosses at the end didn't make that any better. The Forgotten Mountain area after the tower was itself quite fun to explore and find secrets in, but I feel would have been better if I wasn't following the drag of the tower, which made me just want to finish things. Or ended by the king.
Regarding both sets of final bosses, I agree, they're well outside the realm of reasonable difficulty levels. The only reason I was able to kill them at all was due to maxing sneak and one-handed perks with copious use of muffle and invisibility and a high-damage dagger for stacking backstab bonuses. And lots of running away and hiding to lose agro.
within the catacomb coffins, there is another ring of protection... this one is superior to the one found earlier in his play thorugh
13:30
You wouldn't be able to block that anyway. That was a "cinematic kill" move.... Some GENIUS at Bethesda programmed it to where if an attack would kill you. You basically get command grabbed by the enemy. Oh, and this is a frame 1 sort of thing. So again, literally no avoiding it. Even if the enemy is seeming out of range. They'll just teleport to be right in front of you to kill you.
Honestly... it might be good to grab a mod that disables those for NPCs. Since it's just a broken mechanic in general.
Thank you for making these videos! I played ~2 hours of Darkend yesterday as a level fifty-something stealth mage, and even though I never died it still didn't seem to be working for me. Even early on the enemies seemed to simply have too much health, and that didn't make it challenging in an interesting way, just tedious. So I watched this to decide if it's worth continuing. I think watching you do it was more enjoyable than playing it myself would be, so I think I will be fast travelling my way back to Skyrim (or loading a save if it won't let me).
Honestly, I think one of my biggest problems with Darkend was how dark it was in a lighting sense (and I was using a magical glowy helmet from Bruma!). I have yet to play any Dark Souls myself, but from what I've seen it seems like the darkness of Dark Souls is more from the colors of objects than the lighting, so there isn't the eye strain aspect. I got a headache playing Darkend and I'm pretty sure it was from a combination of the dark lighting, the excessively busy textures on the buildings, and the narrow, disorienting spiral stairs. It was definitely better to watch someone else play this so that I didn't have to be on the lookout for enemies and whatnot.
Thank you for stopping to read journals and notes! When I watch friends play videogames, they act like wanting to read the notes is some weird completionist quirk I have. I just wanna understand what's going on!
I can see now why those +1 rings in this mod is so OP broken, it's to balance these broken af bosses lol. All 4 +1 rings can be found in the Forgotten Mountain area. 3 in the hub with the 3 paths, where one path led to the dragon fight, and one in the swamp.
As a conjurer build, I don't mind the difficulty (inherently cheap builds trivialize combat, sure. But my skelly squad has _style_ , dammit). What I do mind was the complete lack of direction. So even if it makes me seem scrubby, I gotta agree about the hand-holding bit.
The EldenSoulsBorneDiesTwice series at least hints at where to go by virtue of NPC dialogue and level design that guides the player towards their next destination while at the same time letting them go off the beaten path if desired. Darkend, well... Look, I love Pharos' atmosphere as well as the lore behind the incidents plaguing the island, but it's just background dressing. It doesn't actually guide you; just gives you context on the situation. Wandering around the island for keys hidden in places nowhere near where they're supposed to be used is... it just makes the mod wear out it's welcome. You can be intuitive without being obvious, y'know?
Again, I can't comment about the combat due to using mods which basically overhaul it (Imagine if Devil May Cry 5's V could summon an army of bullshit instead of only 3 minions at a time. That's more or less what I have going on). Regardless, I love what this mod tries to do. And overall I enjoyed the sheer amount of effort and detail that went into it. There were just some glaring negatives, to me, that marred an otherwise flawless gem.
I personally think this mod is perfectly made for those who are using custom combat systems and animations like ADXP+MCO and other things. I have a level 57 character who primarily uses hand to hand in normal playthrough (with custom martial arts animation), however going into this mod I just knew I had to switch to using melee again and by the end of the journey in Pharos my One Handed and Block all reached 100 when it was only like 17-18 in the beginning. Elden Counter and Parry, Timed Block, Hellblade Block too, Combat System Overhaul where you can cancel your attack and block, I think these honestly helped me tremendously against these difficult bosses since once you parried their attacks they are staggered and in timed block you actually can counter attack parrying them.
Honestly my only suggestion for the mod author is to ask the player the first time they're if they're using custom combat systems or vanilla because then if the player uses custom combats with custom animations or something similar the difficulty should remain the same however if the player is using vanilla then the mod will spread useful and actually helpful items across the map instead. No handholding I know but at least give the options to players!
Thank you for the playthrough, helped guided me as well when I get lost several times!
Don’t sweat the God mode. That boss looked broken af.
Great tour George :) I enjoyed seeing this mod. But, I'm glad you played it because I never will. Just too much darkness and gloom for my taste. However, it was a great watch for the Halloween season :) I have OP demigod type characters set up that would make short work of these enemies, whereas you have a more vanilla play style. I run those kind of plays as well, usually for challenges. No one would enjoy seeing video of my OP stealth runs. So, I certainly appreciate you soldering on through what had to be an horrific experience. After 8 episodes, I'm sure you're relieved it's all over :) I know I would be.
I recently ran all of the main quest of Midwood Isles. Other than the fetch quest that never seemed to end, it was a very enjoyable mod. Thanks for the continued recommendations. I'll be giving the Falskaar mod a go soon and then maybe Rigmor too.
Two quest mods that I have enjoyed immensely that I don't believe you have covered are Moonpath to Elsweyr and Helgen Reborn. I would very much like to see you play through these mods. Either would be an exceptional breath of fresh air after Darkend. So, please consider a visit to Elsweyr or rebuilding Helgen for a future Skyrim Saturday mod play. Unlike other rebuild mods, Helgen gets rebuilt by the NPC's while the player goes off on various quests. So, you get to have all the fun while they do all the building for you.
Adventure on my friend, Phat :)
Been a long time since I played DarkEnd.. or thought I did - I don't remember a dragon or an unkillable old king! Don't think I'll revisit it...
That last boss looks stupidly broken. There's no point in trying to experiment on him like using instant kill effects or ragdolls. Fight cheating with cheating.
Yeah, it'd be different if there was some sort of world element you interacted with to get them into a vulnerable state, or if their combat method had a pattern that if you learned you could beat with enough skill. But it's just an hp tank with bloated damage, sadly.
Running Shield bash. You need block at level 100 to put him on the ground because he is immune to magic.
Yeah, don't feel bad about this at all. From a game design perspective this is way off. You mentioned you haven't played any of the Souls game, but I keep comparing this more to Bloodborne and how they were more generous with the stagger mechanics opening up chances to defeat very tough bosses. Check out the Blood Starved Beast fights sometime on TH-cam; actually, the Game Grump's Arin had a really good run on them that's worth watching. Shows a big difference in tough boss design than what you see here.
That reaction is appropriate 8:06
Amazing work
old king's painful, it's fine
Just wanted to mention that even though the shield can be disenchanted, Auriel's Shield Knockback Enchantment can't be place on anything. The same goes for the ring.
And I checked on Torment & Despair. Even though they can be smithed, they can't be enchanted.
So I just want to say that the authors of this mod are the biggest teases of all time. lol
Because they are already enchanted with a scripted effect. Constant Drain Health. Thats why he kept getting one shot'd. This mod is meant to test your smithing and enchanting if nothing else.
i thought the design of the last level was beautiful! definitely my favourite section, even if there was a bit of running back and forth!
I might be wrong but I think the cause of the curse/"plague" was removing the "teleport" stone from the ancien island/tower (what you found in the ship and used at the beggining of the mod to teleport to the pharos island) The commander came to the island(4E197) to cure his wife, and for that he needed a lot of "slave" (whom proventus used for his experiments)
For new slaves he needed valuable resources (what he used to trade) so he started excavating in the ancient part(4E198) of the island(where the "bad" guys(original natives?) lived (for some reason)) and what woke them up.
(Sorry for my "amazing" english it's not my first language)
(Also I finished this mod a few days ago and the only tactic which helped me against the old king was bashing him away with my shield (shield charge perk) and while he was on the floor I damaged him. (I was curious and checked it, he was lvl 150 and not lvl 116(for me at least))
*pretorious not proventus lol
Agree with many of your points, George. It's positives are great, but I found all the exploration just to find needed keys pointless, irritating, and not the way to encourage level exploration. The story was good, if incomplete, but couldn't make up for what I disliked about the mod. Thanks for playing it!
if you want to see what agony and what not does, there are two versions within the game files. one that drops says what it said when George got his drop. These two other variants do not drop......
Honestly, I think the best way to beat the bosses when lower than level 80 is to be a sneak archer. This was the first mod I ever downloaded, and I was playing as a level 40 something sneak archer with an ebony bow. I was level 100 in sneak and archery, but it still took me six tries to kill the two shadow guys. That fight to me felt worth it in the end due to getting torment, but it was still awful, and the only way I made it though was remaining hidden the entire time. For me, the last boss was really easy to hide from, and therefore easy to kill. I would definitely suggest not even trying this mod if you are lower than 50
The reason they say you can play at level 15 is because they expect you to do a lot of leveling up
Es ist halt eine Mod, die sehr stark an Dark souls angelehnt ist
the thing about this Steel of Protection Ring, it would have kept them from ONE shotting you constantly. It raises/increases PHYSICAL Defense. They killed you because you kept wearing the ring that boosts HP.
Living Bark creature= evil groot
I always felt that the build up for this mod would of been good if it had to deal with Peryite. The explanation of the plague and just the way order has to be established with undeath. The comparison you made to Act 4 Vigilant and this is spot on. Vicn gives the idea you have a path from A to B but how to achieve that is the mystery you need to uncover. I agree that Darkend lacks this aspect and there is a lot in this mod that derails the purpose of why even go on this quest. The atmosphere is what drew me into this mod similar to you. Now the most important question George... Which mod is next? One of Vicn's? Grey Cowl of Nocturnal?
I think he played both Vigilant and Grey Cowl of Nocturnal.
BTW, The shield can be disenchanted so you can put Auriel's Shield Knockback on a better shield. And there was something else I already disenchanted but can't remember what.
The Ceremonial Claymore can be disenchanted for a "visuals" perk which I'm thinking is just to increase the value of something.
Zweihander can be disenchanted for "bleeding damage" but it doesn't say how much damage and for how long. Does anyone have a way to see the mechanics of it so I know if it's worth disenchanting?
The crown makes shout cool down 50 %less
I have to wonder if my game is glitching. When I fought the dragon it had an absolutely insane health bar. I have ordinator/wildcat/apocalypse in my game which is what’s making me question this. I used the “avenging wraith” spell which gets 150% of the stats of whatever killed it last, and after the last guardian killed it I looked, and the wraith had like 30k health. If that’s “balanced” then good lord.
I don’t want to be forced to make op weapons, especially for a mod that suggests level 15…
this mod will even be more greater if they add more bosses to challenge.
On master difficulty the last guardian have one hundred thousand hp
So what's next?
I wonder what mod he's going to start next
What do you do when you get to dark end tower? For me it’s just a big gray wall I can’t enter it or anything
It's not your fault for using god-mode, some modders can't draw a line between difficult and downright unbalance.
*POSSIBLE SPOILERS* I've just finished this mod and I'm curious if anyone knows the real story behind darkend. I'm aware of the story about the commander and his wife and how she died to some sort of illness that even their doctor Pretorious couldn't cure. Which I figure that those Plague trolls might have something to do about it. Those that have played and weren't aware, they reside just along the coast to the right of Searock Castle and the nearby cave. It's quite interesting that where you fight said trolls there's a broken boat nearby possibly indicating someone brought them to the island. Back to the point, if anyone knows any part of the story feel free to pitch in I'd love hear it :)
What do you do when you get to dark end tower? For me it’s just a big gray wall I can’t enter it or anything
@@DavyDave1313 I haven't done darkend in a bit but Is it possible you can explain where you are in further detail?
Hey George cool mod hope you are well much love your way be safe have a wonderful coming in week
Haven't you gone into like 3 catacombs now?
You could have mods like ultimate combat, combat gameplay overhaul to make this experience more "souls like" but anyways had fun watching looking forward for next😁
IIRC he said in the first video of the series that he attempted to, but couldn't get them working properly in time to showcase the mod.
Laughs in violense
Can you do legacy of the Dragonborn but show more and all items more
What level were you at this point? I had to summon my followers in the fight with the champion before this area, he was consistently one-shooting me in QWEST (I'm at level 68 now... but there's also that wildcat combat rehaul going on, ordinator ruling my perks and experience levelling).
Any plans on trying Death Consumes All?
Toooooooourment
The last few bosses and the dragons are really disappointing and just dumb in general. I know the mod wants to be difficult so it can be like souls, but souls is fair. There’s rarely bosses made in souls that have no real way to combat them. Even the most difficult bosses in the series will never force you to cheese them. That wasn’t the case with these bosses.
It’s sad cause I actually really dig this mod other than these enemies. Like the first half of the mod is so atmospheric, it’s really great, but the second half just loses that spark for me. Sort of like the first dark souls I guess
I'm finally playing through Dark Souls 1 now and I'm getting close to the end. It's a game where if you're getting one-shotted or can't do damage to bosses it means you probably need to be a higher level, improve gear, etc. All of which can easily be done because of respawning enemies. In the case of Darkend, it seems from some comments that the bosses scale with your level, meaning that they'll always be several levels above you, hence why they're so ridiculously strong at higher levels. It becomes a game of "well can I land these 800 hits on the final boss without him hitting me once?" which really isn't fun at all.
Helgen Reborn next? It's a pretty overrated mod if you ask me but very popular regardless. I'd like to see Molag Bal's Inferno personally
#Elotrix schau mal rein, wäre Interessant für dich
Jkrojmal, good work, but seriously making a broken final bosses isnt cool or shows your genius or complexity bs, it is bad game balancing and lazy to avoid interesting fights.
Whats worse is it could be done; I hate it when good mods, to say nothing of good games, fall flat on their face right before the finish line with stuff like this.
I do disagree that the mod is too vague in terms of where to go. The little notes scattered around point you in a direction. A few notes around the early town pointed you towards the church, which you traversed and exited. In the castle there's a few notes mentioning the magical trees on the north of the island, getting you up there. Finally, at the northernmost part of the island, you find notes talking about the reconstruction of a destroyed bridge to the ruins, with hints that there may be some ancient evil within. This style is directly out of Dark Souls, where you read item descriptions and stuff to figure things out about the world, and ultimately find your own way through vague hints.
Also, you should use VioLens to turn off NPC killmoves on the player. It makes everything so much better, even if you're not fighting OP enemies.