Recommended way to Co-op?

[Hanok]

Hey all, a friend and I are thinking of a co-op playthrough but were not sure what the preferred method is. Mod or vanilla co-op? Thx in advance.

[Born To Noot]

vanilla coop ask you to beat each boss two times, one on your save, one on his. You can be invaded while doing so, you have to resummon each other every time you die, you can't use the horse while summoned, you can't summon spirit ashes. You also are limited by multiplayer fog gates, and if you have beaten a boss on your save, you can't summon in the same area again.

Seamless coop mod bypass all of this, no invaders, you stay in the host world when you die, you can use the horse freely like in solo. No area limitations or multiplayer fog gates.
HOWEVER the mod is not flawless and you can encounter some glitches on some quests, like npc not giving dialogues or not moving through the world (worst one I encountered was not having access to volcano manor despite joining them), The solution to that is to return to solo when you advance a quest or go to the roundtable hold, do your stuff, then join back. Also, it's preferable to have the same player always be the host for the whole playthrough.

It's up to you to see if you are annoyed by the vanilla limitations to risk missing one or two quests due to a glitch. I've completed the game multiple times with and without the mod, I definitely recommend it if you want a full coop experience with your friend

[$unwish]

mod, vanilla is garbage

[Sparhawk 59]

If you dont want invaders then its mod if you dont mind invaders then its vanilla

[𝑀𝓊𝑔𝑒𝓃]

Mod

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

The seamless co-op mod. If you want to do the whole thing with just you and a friend I can 100% recommend it. There's a lot of effort that went into it to make sure you can't break the game with certain cheesy techniques. For example, say you're both fighting a field boss, one of you dies. They cannot respawn until you leave combat. Lets say you're going through a hard dungeon, surely as long as just one of you dies at a time then enemies will never respawn, so no more challenge anymore right? Nope, everytime you respawn without resting you get a really nasty debuff, highly encouraging you to rest before continuing. The debuffs and new items created for the mod are great, full of references to previous fromsoft games. What I played of it was honestly really fun and worked perfectly.

[Boss]

While invasions can be interesting, they're too constantly to make for a good coop experience. You'll always feel on a timer. Worse, due to FromSoft deciding to keep invasions in, you can't use Torrent, heal at places, travel into certain locations, and get de summoned constantly. Without the mod it's trash.

[Zogtar]

Too many hackers on vanilla for me to recommend it over seamless co-op.

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

I was there was a way to have the seamless mod and keep invasions... like you can't play on regular online with the mod but you're still connected to other people using it of course so I don't see why there can't be an option to allow other people using the mod to invade, that would be sick.

[Dragonirian]

Vanilla if you want an actual game to play.
Mod if you want baby difficulty.

[Caboose]

Originally posted by JereBare:

mods ruin the authentic aspect of playing darksouls/bloodborne/elden ring part of playing the game.

Using seemless coop only enforces the part where you want an easier experience.

No-one will stop you. But you ruin your enjoyment from playing in a game where having coop makes the world more fraught with dangers.

When I first played dark souls, I too was 'annoyed' at invaders. But it was when you could be invaded solo. Elden ring has made it much less likely to invaded, and pretty much only when you're co-oping now. You have more tools for fighting invaders but people still don't want them.

no-one is stopping you from modding. But take it from someone who has played all the bandai namco darksouls games. You will just remove extra experiences you would have not of had from doing so.

except it scale difficulty on the number of players, like regular ER does when you summon. It also mean that if one of your player die stupidly you're stuck with a boss doing more damage and having more health than playing solo. it's not as easy peasy as some may think in the end

[buttchin]

Originally posted by Hanok:

Hey all, a friend and I are thinking of a co-op playthrough but were not sure what the preferred method is. Mod or vanilla co-op? Thx in advance.

If you haven't completed er then DONT use seamless mod, btw vanilla coop is kinda better imo since it feel more rewarding and challenging, i love when i got summoned

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

Originally posted by JereBare:

mods ruin the authentic aspect of playing darksouls/bloodborne/elden ring part of playing the game.

Using seemless coop only enforces the part where you want an easier experience.

No-one will stop you. But you ruin your enjoyment from playing in a game where having coop makes the world more fraught with dangers.

When I first played dark souls, I too was 'annoyed' at invaders. But it was when you could be invaded solo. Elden ring has made it much less likely to invaded, and pretty much only when you're co-oping now. You have more tools for fighting invaders but people still don't want them.

no-one is stopping you from modding. But take it from someone who has played all the bandai namco darksouls games. You will just remove extra experiences you would have not of had from doing so.

Its true that its not the intended experience but its still damn fun and the only way to really experience the whole thing actually together with someone. And I mean the *whole* thing, it lets you go absolutely everywhere together its great. Sure I would suggest also playing the game legit solo with no mods, of course, but if the reason you want to play is actually co-op then I think they should use the mod.

[Anime-Profile-Picture]

Originally posted by buttchin:

Originally posted by Hanok:

Hey all, a friend and I are thinking of a co-op playthrough but were not sure what the preferred method is. Mod or vanilla co-op? Thx in advance.

If you haven't completed er then DONT use seamless mod, btw vanilla coop is kinda better imo since it feel more rewarding and challenging, i love when i got summoned

Yes but OP wants to specifically play with a friend, not just randoms. Trying to play with specific players is a pain. The password ♥♥♥♥ doesn't work half the time, AND you have to do every area twice effectively. It just takes you out of it if you want to do the literal entire thing with your friend. Seriously OP, I suggest checking out this mod.

[Hanok]

Thx all :)

[I AM BAYTOR]

Vanilla. The password stuff works just fine, idk what that dude's issue is.