Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[BruceVC]

So all I did is go to the Data Files section in the startup of Oblivion and just started unticking 3 mods at a time to see which mod was causing the issue and I found it, the unofficial patch for knights of nine. Once I unticked that its working fine and Im good to go

Tip: next time untick one half of them and keep the other half active. So you ID which half of the modlist contains the troublesome one.
Then you proceed dividing that group into two halves.
It's a standard search algorithm, you'll get there much faster (luck aside)

Masie thats genius and so obvious, thanks. That will make it even easier . I will do that next time

I wanted to share my Oblivion mod experience using Vortex, I am use to Vortex but I will use Mod Organizer for Skyrim SE

So I installed about 180 mods and spent about 20 hours selecting them and then doing some rule and load order troubleshooting until Vortex reported everything was stable

But I couldn't load Oblivion from Steam, I then spent more or less another 8 hours troubleshooting this problem and even reinstalled Oblivion twice and deleted the Oblivion.ini several times. But I then realized the problem is clearly with the mods even though Vortex says everything is fine

So all I did is go to the Data Files section in the startup of Oblivion and just started unticking 3 mods at a time to see which mod was causing the issue and I found it, the unofficial patch for knights of nine. Once I unticked that its working fine and Im good to go

Enjoy playing for 5 hours then watching your savegame succumb to crashes/bugs/instability

Also why the fuck are you playing Oblivion

When I restarted gaming again in 2007 after a 12 year break the first 2 games I played were Gothic 3 and Oblivion so I have a nostalgic connection to Oblivion. But I did enjoy it back in 2007 but in those days I didnt use mods so this second play through is almost a new experience with all the mods I have installed

 

[Yosharian]

I remember using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to try to make the game less shit

it didn't work

 

[Delterius]

I remember using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to try to make the game less shit

it didn't work

kinda like this thread innit

 

[BruceVC]

I remember using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to try to make the game less shit

it didn't work

I have installed OOO, I will let you know how it is for me

 

[mastroego]

Masie thats genius and so obvious, thanks. That will make it even easier . I will do that next time

Hopefully there won't be one :D

I remember using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to try to make the game less shit

it didn't work

OOO is fine, come on. I had it installed together with the other Overhaul, Maskar, they can synergize, I learned it from that guide I posted.
I had decent fun with that run, though I halted it to go back to Requiem.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Masie thats genius and so obvious, thanks. That will make it even easier . I will do that next time

Hopefully there won't be one :D

I remember using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to try to make the game less shit

it didn't work

OOO is fine, come on. I had it installed together with the other Overhaul, Maskar, they can synergize, I learned it from that guide I posted.
I had decent fun with that run, though I halted it to go back to Requiem.

Oblivion is way too potato faced for me.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

if you don't know how to handle mod conflicts at the record level(using xedit or similar) you're better off just using wabbajack or w/e the modpack things are
this applies to any creation kit engine game

 

[Valdetiosi]

I had it installed together with the other Overhaul, Maskar,

I would just go all alone with Maskar's. Oscuro's content sticks out like a sore thumb (and by art design and visually compared to base game) and Maskar's allows me to toggle off/on spawns of creatures. Heck, most of the features of that mod you can toggle on/off so why not go with that.

I'm surprised there isn't yet a mod like Maskar's for Skyrim. How hard it would be to create overhaul to revamp spawning system in dungeons?

 

[Gargaune]

I wanted to share my Oblivion mod experience using Vortex, I am use to Vortex but I will use Mod Organizer for Skyrim SE

It's worth hopping to Mod Organizer when you have the time, it's the architecturally superior solution. Back when I was playing Skyrim, I went straight from the ancient TESMM to MO2 and never looked back. And it's not that hard, you don't actually need to understand its more complex features, you can just figure out the basics quickly enough and it'll suffice. At least that worked for me.

 

[BruceVC]

I wanted to share my Oblivion mod experience using Vortex, I am use to Vortex but I will use Mod Organizer for Skyrim SE

It's worth hopping to Mod Organizer when you have the time, it's the architecturally superior solution. Back when I was playing Skyrim, I went straight from the ancient TESMM to MO2 and never looked back. And it's not that hard, you don't actually need to understand its more complex features, you can just figure out the basics quickly enough and it'll suffice. At least that worked for me.

Im definitely going to do that for Skyrim. End of the day I use Vortex for all mods for all my games, not just Elder Scrolls, but their are some limitations with it like I mentioned and every serious mod user just on this thread has suggested MO2 so that tells me what really is the most effective mod manager

Also I have never played Skyrim before yet I have 3 different versions of it on Steam :D but I intend to play Skyrim Anniversary

And like you I dont want to go to deep into the complexity unless necessary. How many mods can you use with MO2 ?

 

[Gargaune]

Also I have never played Skyrim before yet I have 3 different versions of it on Steam :D but I intend to play Skyrim Anniversary

One thing I'm particularly fond of with MO2 - aside from its handling of path virtualisation - is that you can encapsulate all your game files into the install directory. At least you can with Bethesda games, which are the only titles I use it for. You can install individual copies of MO2 in the games' directories, and you can also have it transfer their respective Documents and AppData user files into an internal profile.

A small first advantage in this is cutting down a bit of hassle if you wanted to migrate installs between PCs, but the bigger benefit is that, at least in Steam, you can have distinct copies of the same game at the same time. Take Enderal for example - it was designed as an "either/or" total conversion for Skyrim, with its dedicated launcher allowing you to swap between the two, but MO2 allowed me to set up two separate, independent installs, one for each.

How many mods can you use with MO2 ?

I'm not aware of any limitation in the manager itself, it should just be how many the game can load. For old Skyrim that should be 255 .esp/.esm packages, and for Fallout 4 and Skyrim This-Is-The-Last-One-We-Promise Edition you can add 4096 .esl plugins on top of that.

 

[BruceVC]

I wanted to share my Oblivion mod experience using Vortex, I am use to Vortex but I will use Mod Organizer for Skyrim SE

So I installed about 180 mods and spent about 20 hours selecting them and then doing some rule and load order troubleshooting until Vortex reported everything was stable

But I couldn't load Oblivion from Steam, I then spent more or less another 8 hours troubleshooting this problem and even reinstalled Oblivion twice and deleted the Oblivion.ini several times. But I then realized the problem is clearly with the mods even though Vortex says everything is fine

So all I did is go to the Data Files section in the startup of Oblivion and just started unticking 3 mods at a time to see which mod was causing the issue and I found it, the unofficial patch for knights of nine. Once I unticked that its working fine and Im good to go

Enjoy playing for 5 hours then watching your savegame succumb to crashes/bugs/instability

Also why the fuck are you playing Oblivion

Guys I have hit a strange problem similar to what Yosharian mentioned but not necessarily related

Okay in summary, I start a new game and all my mods load and I can save the game and then load a saved game within the game session only

But if I quit the session and restart the game all my save games immediately crash the game, any ideas would be appreciated. I have done some troubleshooting but I cant seem to stop this pattern of crashing ?

 

[mastroego]

A long time since something similar happened to me.
Not sure it's quite the same thing.
I "solved" it by loading a previous one that did load (perhaps in your case you might try keeping a unmodded save at hand), then from in-game I could reload the modded ones again.
Once done this, it usually went back to normal.

Not sure it's the same problem though...

 

[BruceVC]

A long time since something similar happened to me.
Not sure it's quite the same thing.
I "solved" it by loading a previous one that did load (perhaps in your case you might try keeping a unmodded save at hand), then from in-game I could reload the modded ones again.
Once done this, it usually went back to normal.

Not sure it's the same problem though...

Funny you mention this but I did do this and I am sure it worked

I will do it again with an umodded new game

 

[BruceVC]

I decided to use OBMM and LOOT to troubleshoot my mods and they identified several issues that Vortex was not reporting on in the same way which I fixed

Anyway 4 hours in and the game has not crashed so it looks good and it is stable

 

[Yosharian]

Ehhhh if you are relying on LOOT to order your modlist...

 

[BruceVC]

Ehhhh if you are relying on LOOT to order your modlist...

Its been more reliable than Vortex but more for the LOOT messages, I am sure Vortex does the same thing with mod orders because it uses LOOT ?

I just want to play Oblivion without it crashing....thats all I really care about

 

[Ryzer]

I just want to play Oblivion

Believe me you don't.

 

[Lambach]

With Requiem you will be a hobo-regular dude up until the whereabouts of level 20.

This largely depends on what you choose to play as.

A High-Elf Destruction/Conjuration Mage meets that "now I'm a badass" mark at about half the level most other characters do. They really are Requiem's choice for "Easy Difficulty". Sure, you're squishy as hell and can be taken down by a light breeze, an enemy Mage looking at you funny, or a Dragon sneezing at your general direction from 20 miles away. But that's why you have sky-high Magicka to keep spamming near-immortal spectral Trolls to keep everyone off your back while you blast them with zillion damage Fireballs from a safe distance. You might die from a stray Falmer arrow every now and again, but overall, once you get Adept-level Perks in Destruction and Conjuration with some decent equipment to boot, you'll be able to carve through 90% of the game content easily. It almost gets rather boring at that point, tbh, and the only motivation to keep playing is to conquer the most serious of challenges, like Ebony Vampires, Dragon Priests etc.

On the other hand, try a no-magic Thief-style build. At level 20, you'll probably be a lot richer than the aforementioned Mage, but you'll still struggle against a single Troll, while the Mage is effortlessly blasting them by the dozen at that point. You rely on Sneak Attacks to deal with your foes (as you'd imagine thieves would)? Tough tits, all of the most powerful enemies in the game are immune, sans Dragons, but good luck getting a Sneak Attack on them without Illusion that you're not allowed to use.

Anyway, the point of this rant is that the cutoff point for when you become able to deal with more serious threats is largely dependent on your, for the lack of a better term, build. The skills are so wonderfully disbalanced in terms of power compared to one another that choosing which ones you focus on and develop is almost like a difficulty slider on its own - focus on Destruction, Conjuration, Alchemy etc. to reduce the difficulty slider ; focus on Sneak, Speech, Archery, Block etc. to increase the difficulty slider.

 

[Stavrophore]

focus on Sneak, Speech, Archery, Block etc. to increase the difficulty slider.

Everyone and their mother played and always choose to play as sneak archer in skyrim, so i guess it's a mod way to force you to play a different char

 

[Lambach]

Everyone and their mother played and always choose to play as sneak archer in skyrim, so i guess it's a mod way to force you to play a different char

With Illusion thrown into the mix, a high-level sneak archer with awesome gear is still powerful as all hell in Requiem too.... against most enemies. Emphasis on "most". The exception being those enemies that the Main Quest is full of and plenty other of the most powerful enemies from Side Quests as well. So you can still play a sneak archer and be quite deadly if you know what you're doing, but only for about 80% of the game as opposed to 100% as in vanilla. For that other 20% of the game, you really have to bring something else to the table, or you're screwed.

But also, a sneak archer in vanilla is viable more-or-less from the start. In Requiem, it takes a whole lot of Perks and a whole lot of good gear before you can turn your character into the Ghost of Kyiv Windhelm.

 

[mastroego]

This largely depends on what you choose to play as.

A High-Elf Destruction/Conjuration Mage meets that "now I'm a badass" mark at about half the level most other characters do. They really are Requiem's choice for "Easy Difficulty". Sure, you're squishy as hell and can be taken down by a light breeze, an enemy Mage looking at you funny, or a Dragon sneezing at your general direction from 20 miles away. But that's why you have sky-high Magicka to keep spamming near-immortal spectral Trolls to keep everyone off your back while you blast them with zillion damage Fireballs from a safe distance. You might die from a stray Falmer arrow every now and again, but overall, once you get Adept-level Perks in Destruction and Conjuration with some decent equipment to boot, you'll be able to carve through 90% of the game content easily. It almost gets rather boring at that point, tbh, and the only motivation to keep playing is to conquer the most serious of challenges, like Ebony Vampires, Dragon Priests etc.

On the other hand, try a no-magic Thief-style build. At level 20, you'll probably be a lot richer than the aforementioned Mage, but you'll still struggle against a single Troll, while the Mage is effortlessly blasting them by the dozen at that point. You rely on Sneak Attacks to deal with your foes (as you'd imagine thieves would)? Tough tits, all of the most powerful enemies in the game are immune, sans Dragons, but good luck getting a Sneak Attack on them without Illusion that you're not allowed to use.

Anyway, the point of this rant is that the cutoff point for when you become able to deal with more serious threats is largely dependent on your, for the lack of a better term, build. The skills are so wonderfully disbalanced in terms of power compared to one another that choosing which ones you focus on and develop is almost like a difficulty slider on its own - focus on Destruction, Conjuration, Alchemy etc. to reduce the difficulty slider ; focus on Sneak, Speech, Archery, Block etc. to increase the difficulty slider.

Yeah, good points.
I did try a no magic build before, and right now I'm playing a "cleric" build, so I'm somewhat in the middle.
It all still makes sense though.
I mean more "mundane" abilities being somewhat less fit to deal with dragons and such. Alchemy, magic and artifacts do have a strong impact in Requiem, and I like that.

Also, there are people who play an Ironman of sorts, so that pure destruction mage build would be very risky.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

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Well this person has clearly never played modern Requiem

How 'complete' of a mod would you say that Requiem is atm (both in terms of planned scope and of balancing)?

 

[Yosharian]

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Well this person has clearly never played modern Requiem

How 'complete' of a mod would you say that Requiem is atm (both in terms of planned scope and of balancing)?

I haven't played Requiem since it moved to SE so I can't comment too much on that, but when I last played it, it was very much a complete experience.

It is its own game, so you kinda have to unlearn some Skyrim habits to really enjoy it.

ATM I am waiting for Wildlander to mature a bit before I dive back into Skyrim modding.

 

[mastroego]

I would also say it's finished.
Balance remains a matter of opinions.