Skyrim Mods

Playing the elder scrolls online beta really made me want to play skyrim again so i installed the legendary edition
Last time i played was in the months after the game came out and their were barely any mods, but now theres tons of them

I didnt want to add mods that broke the balance of the game or broke the lore so i didnt add that many
Heres a list of the mods im playing with

A Quality World Map: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4929/?
This mod just adds roads to the skyrim map, last time i played i would just go in a straight line to the quest objective, occasionally taking a detour if i passed something interesting, if i ran into an unclimbable obstacle i would just go around the edge until i got back on track, with this mod i can plan a more logical path

Apocalypse Spells: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16225/?
This mods adds a bunch of new spells to the game, including the some of the ones from old games that i like, stuff like levitate, teleport, and feather fall
None of the spells seem over powered, although ive only used 2 so far, but ive read how 20ish of them work and the only one that might be OP is mind control depending on how it works

Climates of Tamriel: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17802/?
This mod makes the weather more interesting, it also makes the sky look much better and makes it so that when your inside the light from windows makes sense with the time of day/weather conditions outside
When i first started using it i was afraid that their would be crazy weather happening all the time since there are so many different possible weathers, but that hasnt happened, the weather system has made sense so far
Theres also an optional ambient sound mod to go with it, which adds sounds like chirping birds in the wilderness when its clear during the day or crickets at night

Wet and Cold: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27563/?
This mod makes NPCs react to the weather by having them go inside when it rains/snows or by having them put on a hood, it also adds breath effects when its cold and has water drip off you and NPCs when it rains or after swimming
It also adds backpacks to the game which increase your carrying capacity, NPCs on the road will wear them too, the amount the add to your carry capacity is small though and you can disable them if you want (i left them on even though i normally dont like that kind of thing since they amount the add is small enough to not be over powered and i do like seeing them on NPCs that are traveling)

Complete Crafting Overhaul Remade: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49791/?
This mod makes crafting harder by having the recipes be more specific, like requiring a bear pelt rather then just requiring any old pelt, it also lets you salvage items into crafting mats, like you can smelt a sword into an iron ingot, and it makes it so only stuff you have mats for show up in the crafting UI
I also installed the mods that this mod recommends that you install which changes the name of some things to make it more logical (including changing the generic Gold to Septiums, the actual name of the currency)

EZ2C Dialog Menu: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18466/?
This mod makes the dialog options more mouse friendly, it has a bunch of customization options, including the ability to use the old oblivion or morrowind fonts, but by default it looks more or less like the standard dialog menu and just functions better (which is all i wanted so i didnt change anything)
It also has a real time clock that displays while talking to people, which i hate, but you can disable it (sometimes it turns itself back on though, you can hit insert to turn it off again if that happens)

SkyUI: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3863/?
This mod changes the inventory, shop, magic, containers, and favorites menus to be more mouse friendly, it displays information way better then the standard menus, and you can also search and sort your inventory
The favorites menu is completely remade and is much better to use, you can have groups of equipment that you can switch on the fly (like different full sets of armor)

Realistic Lighting Overhaul: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30450/?
This mod changes the lighting in the game so that light emits from the source that should be emitting light
This means that if there is no light source then there is no light and it will be 100% pitch black, so you need a torch or a spell like candlelight in order to see in dungeons
Also it makes the lighting look much better
By the way, dont use the weathers file that this mod has with climates of tamriel, they conflict with each other and will cause your computer to blue screen when you load a save, i learned that the hard way (turns out climates of tamriel already has the features that realistic lighting weathers has)

Skyrim Project Optimization: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32505/?
This mod improves performance when in certain interiors, i added it in the hopes that i could improve my frame rate while using ENB, but it didnt really help, i ended up having to remove ENB because i was only getting like 20 FPS with it on (i plan to try other ENB profiles, maybe theirs one that my computer can handle while still looking good), i kept it after removing ENB because even though it didnt do what i hoped it still seems useful

Unofficial Skyrim Patches: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19/?
This mod fixes various bugs that bethesda never got around to fixing, its good to have

Interesting NPCs: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8429/?
This mod adds a bunch of new fully voice acted NPCs to the game, a lot of which have quests
The voice acting is pretty good, so far ive only seen 2 NPCs from this mod, you can tell which are skyrim NPCs and which are this mods NPCs because the NPCs in this mod have way more dialog options and generally talk more

Even Better Quest Objectives: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32695/?
This mod makes the quest objectives more clear rather than having to rely solely on the quest marker to tell you where to go




I didnt want to add mods that add more items since it messes with the balance of the game, i only made an exception for apocalypse spells since it adds spells from old games
I tried adding project enb but it hit my fps too hard, im going to try realvision enb at some point, it will probably still lower my fps too much though

And im looking for more mods, so if anyone knows any that are balanced, dont go against lore, and are good post them here

this is definitely one of the bigger reasons that i do pc gaming sometimes
is your copy of skyrim legit or slightly less so? in the past ive run into trouble adding mods into games with less savory origins

i think once i have a computer again i'll probably play with
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9286/?
i put in a depressing amount of time, >300 hours, on the console version so i dont think ill be able to enjoy skyrim again with just mechanic mods
ill probably add a few of the mechanic ones you listed as well. definitely the realistic lighting overhaul, that actually sounds great

anyways, this mod claims to redo all the perk trees such that they're more interesting. the author explains it well

Quote :

Q: So far, you've only told me when it would make sense to use another mod. What makes SkyRe special, ignoring the existence of other mods?
A: SkyRe, at its core, is a perk overhaul. However, it doesn't stop at editing perks, but also touches anything that is directly or indirectly related to them.

Q: That's stupid, because it makes it all incompatible. Why would I want that?
A: Simple example: Let's say you're trying to make magic interesting. If you edit perks only, no matter how good those perks become, you're still only at 40% of the road, because when avoiding to edit spells, you're very limited in what you can do. Do you like vanilla's sense of "spell progression", where each spell is just a better version of its predecessor? I thinks it's horrible game design. Now, try changing that without touching spells... and balance your perks around the possibility of 100% cost reduction.
See where I'm getting at? Great perks don't fix bad spells, and great spells don't make bad perks better. Therefore I consider it absolutely necessary to adjust both, and to make the adjustments work with one another. The result becomes better than the sum of its parts.

also if anyone is interested in what "realvision enb" is (pat mentioned in it his post)
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30936/?

Serenity09 wrote:

is your copy of skyrim legit or slightly less so? in the past ive run into trouble adding mods into games with less savory origins

The latter option, and i havent had any trouble with anything (except that time it bluescreened, but that was my mistake and would probably happen on a more legit copy too)

I didnt mention this in my list cause they arent really mods that do anything in skyrim but they are kindve needed, but im using the newest version of SKSE (http://skse.silverlock.org/) because its required by SkyUI, Nexus Mod Manager (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/modmanager/?), because it gives you the option to remove mods fairly easily and i also use BOSS (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/6/?) to make sure the load order is right so that nothing conflicts with anything by loading sooner than it should
I even used TES5Edit (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25859/?) on the dlc files to clean them up because BOSS said they should be cleaned

And even all that extra stuff has worked without any issues on my copy

Serenity09 wrote:

i think once i have a computer again i'll probably play with
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9286/?
i put in a depressing amount of time, >300 hours, on the console version so i dont think ill be able to enjoy skyrim again with just mechanic mods

I thought about adding skyre but decided not to add anything that redoes the combat since i never really used the combat the first time i played
In my first playthrough i played a full mage so i never touched a sword or any of the combat perks outside of the magic trees
In this playthrough im going with a paladin type character that uses restoration, alteration and 1 handed weapons with heavy armor, so since i never really used the original perk system from 1 handed or armor i figured i shouldnt mod it, though if i could get the part of that mod that mods the magic system, i would use that

Serenity09 wrote:

also if anyone is interested in what "realvision enb" is (pat mentioned in it his post)
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30936/?

I ended up adding it (the performance version, option A) and it worked better than projectenb (i used the performance version of that too) it reduces my fps to 43 in the wilderness (without enb i was getting 68 fps on high settings), which is still playable, in the most intensive area of the game i only get 30 fps though, but i already cleared most of that area so it should be fine, i could lower it to medium but 40 fps is good enough and i still get 60fps when inside and like 50 when in a city so its fine

between pat and my brother, i recently got sucked back into modded skyrim. here are my favorite mods by type

graphics: if you have the hardware and the patience, the overall look from real vision enb is so customizable that it's hard to beat. i played with the fantasy version and thought it was great. not so green that it wasn't skyrim but not 50 shades of grey anymore either. if you don't want the full package that ENB describes, my favorites were
part 1part 2 i suggest leaving sunscattering off if you don't have other vivid / green mods, but sunscattering on will match them better if you do
lighting pat mentions this one, i loved it also. he wasn't kidding either, no light = really truly dark. on one hand, this makes dungeons way more atmospheric and, i thought, fun. night time outside just always sucks. mandatory wait till dawn then continue w/e shit you wanted to do. this mod also doesn't work great with houses, especially the ones from hearthfire. every once in awhile you find a mysteriously dark room
SMIM and Vivid Landscapes better meshes for w/e textures you can handle and then a bulk texture pack to go with it
windmills and waterfalls it's a bit harder to explain why i like this one so much, but it's my favorite of the visual mods. maybe you just have to see a windmill lookin oh so fine from up on a mountain but 10/10 you'll agree

better map jumping up an entire mountain because your compass told you to was fun the first time, but not so much the 50th. having a hd map with roads lets you just quickly find the right way from point a -> b. plus following a map instead of (only) your compass is always nice for immersion

skyrim woman suck and this mod helps with that. i like the no makeup / no shine look, honestly the base models just suck and need help, but you can go for fully dolled up gals if thats what you want. i cant imagine it getting old

gameplay:
perk (and items) overhaul this ones too elaborate for me to really discuss what it does, but click on the link and it goes into detail there. i loved that it added so many more interesting paths of character development. in fact, i thought it was a vast improvement in every single way over the original. usually in TES games i spec for everything, but there are just too many perks in this mod to do that and still be good. even better, the trees combine in much more interesting ways.

Spoiler:

i liked the fluffy perk descriptions at first but they became frustrating. theres actually a mod to replace the descriptions -- itd be cool if the original mod had the fluffy descriptions to start but then replaced them with accurate descriptions as you gained levels. this is just a perk overhaul but its so complete an overhaul that it extends to the items that it effects. archery spawned 3 subtypes of bows: longbow, shortbow, and crossbow. enchanting added, modified or removed hundreds of enchantment archetypes. because of this, it is not easily compatible with many other gameplay mods that effect items, recipes or perks (look into this)

SkyRe SkyRe includes many modules, but you can pick and choose what you want. the main module deals with perks, so if you like it better than Perkus Maximus then you can just go all out with this mod. i used the races, enemy ai, and standing stones mods. races and standing stones were both good, i think they create more interesting options without just making the previous clearcut winners weaker. i never noticed enemy ai, it may have conflicted with something else

WTF changes encounter zones so that they're semi random. i hate when whatever dungeon you enter is custom tailored to be a cozy fit for your character. this makes it so each dungeon is anywhere between a hard glare and a respectful nod.

author wrote:

WTF assigns random minimum levels to all encounter zones; either fully random or chance-based, using a formula (described in link)

Content:
Fresh starts the dragons won't be from thomas the tank engine, but this is pretty different too. if youve played the vanilla start before but need to restart the game for whatever reason i strongly recommend just throwing this in your load order

im going to give the community content falskaar a try over some distant weekend and ill update this with how it is / if it works with PerMa

I ended up installing Falskaar back when i played, but i never got around to actually playing it, it looks great though

Im pretty sure that perk overhaul didnt exist back when i played with mods, i definitely wouldve gotten the mage part of that if it existed (and if i played now id get all of it), it looks good

You should really use SkyUI, it makes inventory management so much better, the vanilla skyrim inventory looks terrible by comparison

I like the idea of WTF, but it seems like it might screw you over by randomly making an area that you have to go much too difficult to do, even though you are supposed to be in that area, since it will just cause you to grind in another, easier, area until you can do the area you want to do
I think it would be better to assign a set difficulty to every area, a difficulty that makes sense for that area when you are supposed to be there, like all the areas near riverwood should be faily low level, and then scale you down to that area for if you skip an area and are super powerful so that you dont just own everything, you wouldnt be scaled down too much, youd still be pretty powerful, just not a god, basically do it the way GW2 did it

And LMAO at that video, i saw the thomas the tank engine mod before, but none of the others, and
that ending was just hilarious
I had to look up if the tommy wiseau horse was a real mod because that was so ludicrous to me that i didnt believe it to be a real thing