So, has anyone else touched the Convergence mod for DS3? It's a big overhaul mod that changes up the maps and bosses, and adds a bunch of spells. Like, more spells than you think when you hear 'a bunch of spells'. Twelve entire complete types of spells worth of spells, more or less. I can hold the up or down button in the attunement page and see a solid five second's worth of spells before I hit the other side, and I don't even have them all.
There are good melee options too, but it's clear where the vast majority of the mod's love went. Some of the new spell vendor NPCs even got voice acting in the latest patch, including responding to the different spell book items you can find out in the wild. Halflight's there in Firelink, and he's one of the talking ones, which is neat.
I don't know if I can wholeheartedly recommend it, because it changes up a lot of stuff in order to try and balance the central conceit of FP being wizard stamina rather than a finite resource. There's an item you can buy to disable that while it's in your inventory, to change it back to a more Dark Souls standard, but it does feel like you're expected to go through at least once without that limitation.
As a more minor complaint, most of the NPC quests were also removed and they're just hanging out in Firelink forever, probably because the mod anticipates that you know how their story ends and doesn't feel like trying to make it feel new and exciting, but probably also because there's a significant possibility that if there were neutral NPCs out in the wilderness you might accidentally delete them with one of your nuclear bombs or whatever (nuclear bombs not included).
On the other hand, the revamped maps do look really good when they aren't eating your graphics card for dinner, and it comes with built in shaders and stuff pretty much everywhere; you can find videos of it online, and they aren't touched up in any way; it really does look like that. More than just decoration, there are a few areas with outright new navigational meshes and buildings and such, like in the Profaned Capital. Shadows and intentionally poor lighting are prevalent, but in a way that lets torches and the light spell shine, so it feels like they're actually useful more than once.
What type of Elemental Damage you're doing does actually matter much more, as well; I was having a very hard time in the Cathedral of the Deep until I tried out a different weapon and realized that they just had a truly significant resistance to magic damage (like the magic barrier miracle hints at in the base game, funnily enough). It was a neat surprise.
You can resurrect bosses to try out new builds on them without advancing to NG+, and it has a comprehensive monster summoning system to make up for multiplayer being unavailable; it's what I can imagine Elden Ring's spirit summoning being like, rendered through DS3's existing spell casting system. It's hard to tell whether the better spell is the one that lets you fire the Demon Prince's laser beam, or the one that lets you summon a Hollow Manservant. He's a lot more aggressive when he's got a friend who believes in him, apparently.
