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Elden RingvSandbox-3.9.5---Progression-3.6.6
Boss Arena
A dedicated mode entirely focused on fighting bosses. Adds a boss selection menu to the Roundtable Hold to allow re-fighting any boss at any time. Supports all base game and DLC bosses. Comes in two v
Description
This is a boss fight arena mod for Elden Ring. This mod was originally made for practicing boss fights and trying out different builds, without having to spend hours on getting to the boss and upgrading your character, as well as for players who mainly enjoy the boss fights for replayability. Killing a boss doesn't disable them, so that you can keep fighting them.
Note that this mod is meant as a standalone experience due to all the changes it makes. You should use a dedicated character slot for each mode, not use those characters in the vanilla game, and conversely, not use vanilla characters with the mod.
NOTE: I am not the original creator of this mod. Both the original mod and its creator RepO98 disappeared from Nexus in early 2024 (and the creator seems to have removed their online presence entirely), so I took it upon myself to update the mod for the current patch and add the DLC content as it was my favorite Elden Ring mod. Since then, I have managed to expand it with the addition of Progression Mode and many other features, so I hope you enjoy it.
______________________
Features: Sandbox Mode
- Includes every boss (defined as any enemy with a named HP bar at the bottom) in the base game and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.
- Fight any boss as many times as you want (killing them doesn't matter)
- After creating a new character, you get teleported to Roundtable Hold. Talk to Gideon and select the "Initialize Boss Arena" option to get started.
- The NPCs at the Roundtable have everything you need to get your build going quickly:
- Kalé sells basically every item in the game for free, including fully upgraded weapons as an option. You can buy items individually or obtain all items in a category at once.
- Rennala allows you to reallocate your stats and change your appearance at no cost.
- Hewg and Roderika will upgrade your weapons and Spirit Ashes respectively without the need for materials or runes. All weapon affinities are also available immediately.
- Interacting with Morgott's corpse will let you trigger NG+ cycles at will. Note that there is no way to go back to a lower cycle without tools like Cheat Engine or starting a new character.
- Jar-Bairn allows you to toggle infinite HP/FP/stamina cheats on and off.
- You can also level up for free.
- You can fight bosses by talking to Gideon. Selecting a boss teleports you close to the boss.
- You can choose whether dying to a boss should respawn you at the fog gate, or back at the Roundtable.
- There are multiple boss selection modes available:
- Single boss selection.
- Random selection from a set of pre-defined pools, including a "sequential mode" option which warps you from one random boss to another after defeating them, without repeats.
- Boss Rush, which puts you up against a series of bosses in a sequence. You can also create your own sequences by following this tutorial.
- NG+ cycles have been rebalanced to make early to mid-game bosses more challenging.
- DLC bosses have been rebalanced to remove the need for Scadutree Fragments/Revered Spirit Ash. The vanilla mechanics and stats can be restored with an optional modifier.
- Harder difficulty options are available.
______________________
Features: Progression Mode
- Uses the same basic framework as Sandbox, but you start with almost nothing and must obtain items and upgrades from defeating bosses.
- Bosses are structured in tiers of increasing difficulty. You must defeat the ones tagged as in order to unlock the next tier.
- Every boss has multiple item drops, many of which include multiple items bundled together. Under the default "partial randomization" mode, boss drops can be classified into the following types:
- A fixed set of upgrade materials for your weapons, summons, flasks...
- A random set of crafting materials
- A guaranteed unique drop the first time you defeat a boss
- A number of bonus unique drops, ranging from 2 to 6 depending on the boss (generally, major bosses hold more items than minibosses). These are rolled at random within the pool for each boss, with higher game cycles increasing the number of rolls.
- The mod also offers 3 alternative item drop modes:
- Full randomization (single item pool): Instead of using specific item pools per boss, any boss can drop any item.
- Full randomization (per item type): Like the previous mode, except item drops are rolled separately for each type of item (weapons, armor, talismans, spells, Ashes of War + Tools, Spirit Ashes + Crystal Tears). Use this if you want to ensure you get a greater variety of item types.
- No randomization: Like the default mode, except bosses always drop their entire set of guaranteed + bonus drops on the first defeat.
- Regardless of mode, upgrade materials are always fixed.
- Once you defeat a boss, you cannot select it again until New Game+. This prevents grinding/farming the same bosses until you reach that point, so spend your resources wisely.
- Cheats are included to unlock replaying bosses in NG as well as unlocking all bosses from the start.
______________________
Installation
NOTE: Mod Engine 2 support has been deprecated. It will still work and you can still use it if you wish, but no support will be provided for its use.
1. Download and install the latest ME3 installer executable.
If your antivirus blocks the file, add an exception for it. ME3 is completely safe, but as a relatively new tool, it may still cause some false positives with overzealous antivirus software.
2. Extract the Boss Arena .zip file (right click > Extract All), and open the resulting folder.
3. Make sure Steam is running in the background with a legitimate copy of the game owned there, and simply double click the "Launch Boss Arena Sandbox/Progression" .me3 file to launch the game with the mod installed.
4. Verify that the title screen has changed to the Boss Arena one, and then start a new character.
______________________
Uninstallation
If you used ME3 as suggested, you don't need to do anything special. Simply launch the game directly through Steam to play the normal game.
By default, the mod now forces the use of a separate savefile, so there should be no danger of getting banned when going back online, but if you used the mod before this change was introduced, always avoid loading characters in the vanilla game that have been used with the mod.
______________________
Important notes
- You should create a new character after installing the mod for the first time. Using characters created outside the mod can make some bosses unplayable, make the game and the mod work in weird ways, and it might screw up the progression of the old save.
- Compatibility with other mods is not guaranteed. This mod makes changes to many aspects of the game such as map data, events, talk scripts, text, and more. Any mod that modifies any of these aspects will require manual merging, which I can't help you with. All I can do is point you to this resource.
- The only mod that is officially supported is thefifthmatt's Enemy Randomizer. Note that the Item Randomizer portion is NOT compatible and should be disabled. I also recommend using the Enemy Randomizer compatibility fix in the "Optional modifiers" folder.
You can use the two mods together by using the "Merge other mod" option in the randomizer to select Boss Arena's "mod" folder. Then randomize enemies, and when that finishes successfully, use the Launch Elden Ring button.
- Switching between Sandbox and Progression versions on the same character may result in bugs and is not supported. You should use a different character slot for each version of Boss Arena.
- This mod has been tested with version 1.16.1 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.
- I advise against exploring the game world outside the Roundtable Hold and fighting bosses. This mod was designed to be a very focused, standalone experience, only to be played through fighting the bosses and using the tools in Roundtable Hold. Playing the game outside the intended areas might cause bugs in the game and in how the mod works.
- There are probably some bugs that I have 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 here. The more information you include, the better.
______________________
Credits
- RepO98 - original creator up to version 1.4 of Sandbox Mode.
- PositronCannon (myself) - current maintainer since version 1.5 of Sandbox Mode; creator of Progression Mode.
- KaruMiraiii - French translation.
______________________
Special Thanks
- All the creators of modding tools for FromSoft games. Particularly Smithbox/DSMapStudio, UXM, Mod Engine 2, ME3, DarkScript3, ESDStudio/ESDLang, WitchyBND, and the Elden Ring Debug Tool.
- All the contributors to the Souls modding wiki for the invaluable information they have compiled. Shoutout in particular to thefifthmatt for his excellent tutorial on EMEVD scripts in Elden Ring (invaluable to help me reverse engineer this mod in order to update it) on top of his many contribution to the tools above (and for the countless hours of fun I've had with his randomizer mods).
- Grimrukh and LobosJr for their "Learning to Mod FROMSOFT Games" series on YouTube, which served as an excellent introduction to modding when I was starting out.
______________________
Donations
If you enjoyed the mod and feel like supporting my work, you can tip me on Ko-fi.
______________________
My other mods
- Dark Souls 3: Boss Arena
- Dark Souls Remastered: Boss Arena
- Elden Ring: Dungeon Crawler
This is a boss fight arena mod for Elden Ring. This mod was originally made for practicing boss fights and trying out different builds, without having to spend hours on getting to the boss and upgrading your character, as well as for players who mainly enjoy the boss fights for replayability. Killing a boss doesn't disable them, so that you can keep fighting them.
Note that this mod is meant as a standalone experience due to all the changes it makes. You should use a dedicated character slot for each mode, not use those characters in the vanilla game, and conversely, not use vanilla characters with the mod.
NOTE: I am not the original creator of this mod. Both the original mod and its creator RepO98 disappeared from Nexus in early 2024 (and the creator seems to have removed their online presence entirely), so I took it upon myself to update the mod for the current patch and add the DLC content as it was my favorite Elden Ring mod. Since then, I have managed to expand it with the addition of Progression Mode and many other features, so I hope you enjoy it.
______________________
Features: Sandbox Mode
- Includes every boss (defined as any enemy with a named HP bar at the bottom) in the base game and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.
- Fight any boss as many times as you want (killing them doesn't matter)
- After creating a new character, you get teleported to Roundtable Hold. Talk to Gideon and select the "Initialize Boss Arena" option to get started.
- The NPCs at the Roundtable have everything you need to get your build going quickly:
- Kalé sells basically every item in the game for free, including fully upgraded weapons as an option. You can buy items individually or obtain all items in a category at once.
- Rennala allows you to reallocate your stats and change your appearance at no cost.
- Hewg and Roderika will upgrade your weapons and Spirit Ashes respectively without the need for materials or runes. All weapon affinities are also available immediately.
- Interacting with Morgott's corpse will let you trigger NG+ cycles at will. Note that there is no way to go back to a lower cycle without tools like Cheat Engine or starting a new character.
- Jar-Bairn allows you to toggle infinite HP/FP/stamina cheats on and off.
- You can also level up for free.
- You can fight bosses by talking to Gideon. Selecting a boss teleports you close to the boss.
- You can choose whether dying to a boss should respawn you at the fog gate, or back at the Roundtable.
- There are multiple boss selection modes available:
- Single boss selection.
- Random selection from a set of pre-defined pools, including a "sequential mode" option which warps you from one random boss to another after defeating them, without repeats.
- Boss Rush, which puts you up against a series of bosses in a sequence. You can also create your own sequences by following this tutorial.
- NG+ cycles have been rebalanced to make early to mid-game bosses more challenging.
- DLC bosses have been rebalanced to remove the need for Scadutree Fragments/Revered Spirit Ash. The vanilla mechanics and stats can be restored with an optional modifier.
- Harder difficulty options are available.
______________________
Features: Progression Mode
- Uses the same basic framework as Sandbox, but you start with almost nothing and must obtain items and upgrades from defeating bosses.
- Bosses are structured in tiers of increasing difficulty. You must defeat the ones tagged as in order to unlock the next tier.
- Every boss has multiple item drops, many of which include multiple items bundled together. Under the default "partial randomization" mode, boss drops can be classified into the following types:
- A fixed set of upgrade materials for your weapons, summons, flasks...
- A random set of crafting materials
- A guaranteed unique drop the first time you defeat a boss
- A number of bonus unique drops, ranging from 2 to 6 depending on the boss (generally, major bosses hold more items than minibosses). These are rolled at random within the pool for each boss, with higher game cycles increasing the number of rolls.
- The mod also offers 3 alternative item drop modes:
- Full randomization (single item pool): Instead of using specific item pools per boss, any boss can drop any item.
- Full randomization (per item type): Like the previous mode, except item drops are rolled separately for each type of item (weapons, armor, talismans, spells, Ashes of War + Tools, Spirit Ashes + Crystal Tears). Use this if you want to ensure you get a greater variety of item types.
- No randomization: Like the default mode, except bosses always drop their entire set of guaranteed + bonus drops on the first defeat.
- Regardless of mode, upgrade materials are always fixed.
- Once you defeat a boss, you cannot select it again until New Game+. This prevents grinding/farming the same bosses until you reach that point, so spend your resources wisely.
- Cheats are included to unlock replaying bosses in NG as well as unlocking all bosses from the start.
______________________
Installation
NOTE: Mod Engine 2 support has been deprecated. It will still work and you can still use it if you wish, but no support will be provided for its use.
1. Download and install the latest ME3 installer executable.
If your antivirus blocks the file, add an exception for it. ME3 is completely safe, but as a relatively new tool, it may still cause some false positives with overzealous antivirus software.
2. Extract the Boss Arena .zip file (right click > Extract All), and open the resulting folder.
3. Make sure Steam is running in the background with a legitimate copy of the game owned there, and simply double click the "Launch Boss Arena Sandbox/Progression" .me3 file to launch the game with the mod installed.
4. Verify that the title screen has changed to the Boss Arena one, and then start a new character.
______________________
Uninstallation
If you used ME3 as suggested, you don't need to do anything special. Simply launch the game directly through Steam to play the normal game.
By default, the mod now forces the use of a separate savefile, so there should be no danger of getting banned when going back online, but if you used the mod before this change was introduced, always avoid loading characters in the vanilla game that have been used with the mod.
______________________
Important notes
- You should create a new character after installing the mod for the first time. Using characters created outside the mod can make some bosses unplayable, make the game and the mod work in weird ways, and it might screw up the progression of the old save.
- Compatibility with other mods is not guaranteed. This mod makes changes to many aspects of the game such as map data, events, talk scripts, text, and more. Any mod that modifies any of these aspects will require manual merging, which I can't help you with. All I can do is point you to this resource.
- The only mod that is officially supported is thefifthmatt's Enemy Randomizer. Note that the Item Randomizer portion is NOT compatible and should be disabled. I also recommend using the Enemy Randomizer compatibility fix in the "Optional modifiers" folder.
You can use the two mods together by using the "Merge other mod" option in the randomizer to select Boss Arena's "mod" folder. Then randomize enemies, and when that finishes successfully, use the Launch Elden Ring button.
- Switching between Sandbox and Progression versions on the same character may result in bugs and is not supported. You should use a different character slot for each version of Boss Arena.
- This mod has been tested with version 1.16.1 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.
- I advise against exploring the game world outside the Roundtable Hold and fighting bosses. This mod was designed to be a very focused, standalone experience, only to be played through fighting the bosses and using the tools in Roundtable Hold. Playing the game outside the intended areas might cause bugs in the game and in how the mod works.
- There are probably some bugs that I have 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 here. The more information you include, the better.
______________________
Credits
- RepO98 - original creator up to version 1.4 of Sandbox Mode.
- PositronCannon (myself) - current maintainer since version 1.5 of Sandbox Mode; creator of Progression Mode.
- KaruMiraiii - French translation.
______________________
Special Thanks
- All the creators of modding tools for FromSoft games. Particularly Smithbox/DSMapStudio, UXM, Mod Engine 2, ME3, DarkScript3, ESDStudio/ESDLang, WitchyBND, and the Elden Ring Debug Tool.
- All the contributors to the Souls modding wiki for the invaluable information they have compiled. Shoutout in particular to thefifthmatt for his excellent tutorial on EMEVD scripts in Elden Ring (invaluable to help me reverse engineer this mod in order to update it) on top of his many contribution to the tools above (and for the countless hours of fun I've had with his randomizer mods).
- Grimrukh and LobosJr for their "Learning to Mod FROMSOFT Games" series on YouTube, which served as an excellent introduction to modding when I was starting out.
______________________
Donations
If you enjoyed the mod and feel like supporting my work, you can tip me on Ko-fi.
______________________
My other mods
- Dark Souls 3: Boss Arena
- Dark Souls Remastered: Boss Arena
- Elden Ring: Dungeon Crawler
Downloads
vSandbox-3.9.5Latest
Boss Arena (Sandbox Mode)
Google Drive
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