Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Lemming42]

If you play with the right mindset, BFB is actually a brilliant dungeon now instead of a fucking mindless face roll like it was in vanilla.

Last time I played, I measured my character's power by how far I could get into the dungeon.

Initially it was a challenge to kill the first pack of bandits.

Then I made it further in, using a trap I found to kill the mindless undead that I encountered.

Eventually it was too tough and I had to come back later.

This is far more interesting than BFB being a fucking cake walk that your character completes with ease minutes after he enters the game world.

Yes, BFB has been made "harder". It would also make Doom "harder" if someone modded it to make Doomguy start with 5% max health and made all the zombiemen in E1M1 into bullet sponges, and added a mechanic where Doomguy's pistol will deal more damage the more zombiemen he kills. It would be very hardcore, and 13 year old Redditors would find great appeal in how badass it makes them feel for playing it. Would it be fun, though? Would it complement the base game's strengths? Would it improve Doom? Or would it be totally retarded? The end result is essentially just that the player would spend more time than usual on each map.

What Skyrim (and other Bethesda titles) has going for it is the wealth of systems, which can lend a sort of immersive sim quality to it at times - hence things like you leading the Draugr into the traps (indulging in that sweet hardcore Requiem combat by completely circumventing it). If the best you can say about Requiem is that it forced you to use enviromental hazards to deal with enemies, I'm still not sure I see the point - again, it's no improvement on vanilla. Vanilla offers a very low-risk and dull dungeon crawl where the player takes down tons of Draugr, a big spider, and a mini-boss. Is this experience improved if the player runs past all the enemies and then crouches next to the death-blade corridor while the dipshit foes wander into the instakill zone?

My complaint isn't that BFB is "hard", I use it as an example because it's proof of how attempting to overhaul Skyrim in the way that Requiem does is a non-starter. The game itself telegraphs BFB to the player and it's designed as a starting dungeon. Making it so that the player can't go there unless they abuse AI and rely on environmental hazards hasn't made Skyrim better, at least not in my view. You can also go and beat up some wolves and break into people's houses and then come back and steamroll the Draugr later, in which case your experience mirrors vanilla. You have played a similar experience to vanilla but you've spent 90 minutes cutting wood in Riverwood first. How has this improved the game?

I think the way to really improve Skyrim would be to enhance the systems that are already there, such as the stealth, and recognise that combat is arcade-y action shit and adjust it accordingly to make it play better as the action game that everything in the worldspace is designed around it being.

 

[Yosharian]

I'm beginning to wonder if you've actually played the mod, you don't seem to understand what I'm trying to say at all.

Anyway, if you want to play Skyrim enhanced, go play that. The rest of us are quite happy with what Requiem does.

 

[Lemming42]

If you were saying anything beyond jerking off over the mod's "difficulty" then I suppose I don't understand, given that your entire reply to me was this:

"Waagh BFB is too hard now"

I must have missed the deeper meaning here - it sounded like you were just doing some embarrassing posturing, but I'll give it a re-read to see what I missed.

If you want artificial difficulty at the expense of all logic and game design, I can do you a big favour and make the ultimate Skyrim mod for you - it'll give all enemies 9999 health and disable all weapons and spells for the player, except the Fus shout, which will deal 0.1 damage. Fus will also have a three-hour real time cooldown. Just imagine how hardcore it'll be! Imagine the difficulty! It'd take about 12 days to beat a standard wolf! Won't be for everyone, of course, only the most elite players.

 

[Ravielsk]

It's true, the problem with things like Requiem is that they assume that slapping a bunch of more "hardcore" RPG mechanics onto a game that's designed as a free-flowing action game will suddenly make it better. You might as well be forcing RPG stats on Half-Life and making Gordon's pistol do no fucking damage until he's killed forty marines. The game just isn't built for it and it feels bizarre.

What makes this worse is that any additional quest or dungeon mods become a crapshot. The new dungeon may integrate flawlessly or it may become a complete shit show. A long puzzle dungeon or even just a long exploratory mods especially suffer from this because they are designed around the player having high vanilla carry weight and unlimited time to solve their specific challenges. Worse yet it can be very selective where the first few additions are perfectly fine but then midway through the mod you can hit a brick wall in the form of normal vanilla fight that just became a boss fight.

I like my Skyrim with some new stuff that can still surprise me but flipping a coin with each new addition is not the kind of surprise I am looking for.

 

[DeepOcean]

To me is simple, the real choice here is between not playing, playing imperfect Requiem or playing pure shit, Requiem made Skyrim playable, that is already an achievement. Is it perfect? No but when you have vanilla Skyrim to compare to, in comparison, it is the only way the game is playable for more than 5 hs unless you like playing vanilla Skyrim that is as fun and challenging as watching paint dry.

The very fact of Requiem adding some basic checks for player competency made the game leagues of magnitude better.

 

[Jarmaro]

So, I decided that doing a normal playthrough of a sneaky illusionist is doomed, thus I pulled the breaks and decided to go all-in into alchemy, as everyone was saying it's amazing and neccessary to really play the game. And you know what? One session with few flowers and I already see why. Alchemy is completely broken. Utterly inbalanced. No wonder Requiem players like it so much, they need to convince themselves that they are hardcore players playing a hardcore game, but still abuse a completely broken mechanic that allows them to progress through this ridiculously designed world. Thus they maintain their sense of superiority while also being able to play.

I wonder what was the rationale behind increasing the yield of flowers from one (three?) to fucking eight. Three bushes and I'm already ready to make dozens of potions.

I'm 22~ alchemy skill atm and already almost breaking the economy by buying ingredients, I assume that two or more perks and I will be able to flood the market. Thus reaching more alchemy lessons, thus getting more money, thus leveling...It's funny how a game that tries to learn from Morrowind repeats it's cardinal sin of unbalanced Alchemy. I guess it's fitting, in a way.

The very fact of Requiem adding some basic checks for player competency made the game leagues of magnitude better.

Could you name those checks for player competency? I'd be happy to learn.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

wonder Requiem players like it so much, they need to convince themselves that they are hardcore players playing a hardcore game, but still abuse a completely broken mechanic that allows them to progress through this ridiculously designed world. Thus they maintain their sense of superiority while also being able to play.

Really? Damn I gotta try this. Never bothered with anything other than smithing.

 

[Stavrophore]

No but when you have vanilla Skyrim to compare to, in comparison

You must had slept away for years, because while requiem stagnated, new mods and mechanics were uploaded on nexus. There are tons of overhauls from enai to simonmagus, synthesis deleveler patchers, health, perks and progression synthesis patchers, economy and loot overhauls, leveled lists frameworks like OWL, hell the bandits can be emulated by OBIS, you can make something quite similar to requiem, withour any other questionable stuff that you dislike in requiem. You can dial in any changes to fit to your own ideation of perfect verisimilitude. Requiem was revolutionary when it came out as 1.9 version, where there was an absolute lack of something similar, there were no patching tools beside C++/SKSE written skyproc. Then requiem team really dropped the ball with a long time porting to SSE because of ogerboss stubborness, and many people made mods in the meantime to emulate the experience. 2022 and 2023 are best years of skyrim modding tbh, because people are modding actual new mechanics, and interesting frameworks were released to help mod makers.

 

[DeepOcean]

Of course, should had been more clear, replace Requiem with the mod list you prefer, I use requiem more as an example that I have some familiarity than something you must install, but I just think vanilla Skyrim is just awful and some level scalling disabling mod and something that add basic player skill checks back in the game are the minimum necessary even if some side effects of modding happen, nothing is worse than brute forcing your way through everything for 50hs straigth because some normie gamer wanted to go literally everywhere from level 1 because he would drop the game in 5 hours.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

IMO a 'good' Skyrim mod setup would be combining attack commitment, distinct weapon movesets and stat deflation with some of the location claiming frameworks. Chuck in the usual engine fixes & convenience tweaks, season with some vanilla quest line & dialogue additions and presto! You have a TES flavoured approximation of a modern AAA open world with some very light RPG features. The world design doesn't organically lend itself to anything else so it makes much more sense to lean into the common lineage with this type of game.

I'm only ever half-joking when I say the degenerates who mod it into an open world porn simulator understand the game better than anyone else.

 

[Jarmaro]

As my 13 hour playing Requiem clocks in, I decide to cut my losses and stop. I cleared all bandit camps around Whiterun, done my best to try to engage with what's there, but still I'm level 11 with 22 in One Handed. A skill I use all the time my sneaking fails (which is a lot). When someone here or on Reddit wrote that clearing the entire map as a mage yielded him barely 50 in Destruction I thought it an exaggeration. Now I believe. If I keep playing my gameplay will consist of painful search for bandit camps without any ability to tackle dungeons - because the 'Requiem Dungeon Masters' think that Sneaking is a bad playstyle that needs to be rooted out with prejudice. I can easily imagine another 10-20 hours of just slowly grinding levels without ability to do any real game content. Why would I do it?

As if bias against stealth wasn't enough, I've noticed some bandits have a weird mechanic where whenever the player is in certain radius of them they stop whatever they are doing, turn around, then go back to doing whatever. It means they do a full turn-around and notice me. It only happens once, when I'm in certain radius or place. I swear it wasn't in the base game, and I cannot imagine any other mod in my list that changes enemies' behaviour aside of Requiem. Most likely scripted. But it's a minor thing overall, and it's possible not to be intentional so I won't hold it against Requiem. Even though it drives me insane.

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To summarize, Requiem is a deeply flawed attempt at deleveling the world and making the combat more interesting, but inevitably fails due to inability to work with the game. Bending the game around arbitraly design decisions impoverishes the game, castrating it from anything that made it worth playing. The funniest thing is, it's not as if vanilla Skyrim is fully scalable. You 'cannot go anywhere since level 1'. I mean, you can, just as you can in Requiem. But you are going to have a bad time. The same if you try to fight high-level enemies like Giants, or even Dragon Priests. Hell, it's not as if you could just go and try fighting a Frost Troll from the start in Vanilla and didn't have to use Fire Magic or torch to take it down. Or tackle Forsworn camps.

mastroego mentioned using 300 arrows to kill a dangerous enemy with cannot handle head-on. I have fond memories of my first fight with Dragon Priest Krosis all the way back in 2012, when I randomly stumbled upon his grave and had to waste around that number of arrows while hiding behind a rock. Another interesting memory of mine is going against fire mages as a melee character and getting one shoted, despite playing vanilla. Because at a certain point Fire Mages are simply that strong, if you don't take precautions. What's my point with these examples? Vanilla Skyrim isn't exactly an effortless experience. Yes, it's rather easy and unsophisticated in its raw form, and I and many other people eventually get bored with it. But one cannot exaggerate Skryim's flaws just to excuse Requiem, which in its attempt to ameliorate Skyrim's failings breaks the world, dismantles its gameplay and leaves a pitiful amounts of immersion in return.

I like immersive RPG experiences. I like when the world doesn't resolve around the player and exists in separation from him. But Requiem not only fails to deliver a solid immersive experience, but also provides its own immersion-breaking problems. Maybe Requiem was a solid choice against the vanilla Skyrim years ago when it was first released, but today? With a myriad other mods that attempt to tackle the same problems as Requiem without falling on their face? I attempted to play Requiem due to its reputation, chasing that solid RPG experience that Vanilla Skyrim promises but ever falls short of delivering. But it's at least an enjoyable experience, if unfulfilling. There's nothing particularly enjoyable about Requiem, just novelty.

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Now I'm going to do what I should have done from the start and use the popular gameplay Overhauls, either Ordinator again, or maybe Adamant. Possibly the combination of all three known as 'Vokrii Black'. With Wildcat or Blade and Blunt combat overhauls. Especially the first, Wildcat, appears to be extremely popular with almost 2 million downloads on Nexus. It even introduces injury system to combat, providing a more sophisticated system of risk and reward than the base game. Not to mention it increases both the damage dealt and taken, in similar way to Requiem, just more in line with what the game can support, without twisting its essence into some monstrosity. Or cringy Dark Souls-wannabe frankestein.

I'll probably share my thoughts on whatever I choose in the near future.

 

[Lemming42]

Hope you can get a good modlist going. I've not really been heavily into Skyrim modding since about 2018 so I'd love to hear what the best options are for a playthrough in 2023.

 

[Jarmaro]

Hope you can get a good modlist going. I've not really been heavily into Skyrim modding since about 2018 so I'd love to hear what the best options are for a playthrough in 2023.

Everyone seem to agree that the last 2 years have been a true renaissance for Skyrim modding, with incredible advancements in animations and engine enchancements. Dozens of big mods that overhaul every city, enrich locations, tons of immersive little stuff like automatic animated helmet removal while in a city or out of combat, animations for basically everything you can imagine, even that recent big mod Animated Traversal with a patch that adds possiblity for climbing or going over obstacles (mostly for immersion). Hell, someone even made High Quality animated(!) lockpick screens for every type of chest. Not to mention dozens of incredible combat overhauls, everyone can pick something for themselves.

Me, at the moment, is considering this pack of mods by one author, created to overhaul the entire game into a cohesive, richer experience:
Aetherius - A Race Overhaul
Mundus - A Standing Stone Overhaul
Mysticism - A Magic Overhaul
Adamant - A Perk Overhaul
Arena - An Encounter Zone Overhaul
Blade and Blunt - A Combat Overhaul
Scion - A Vampire Overhaul
Manbeast - A Werewolf Overhaul
Apothecary - An Alchemy Overhaul
Pilgrim - A Religion Overhaul
Thaumaturgy - An Enchanting Overhaul
Hand to Hand - An Adamant Addon

The best part is that almost all of them are extremely modular, meaning you can pick and choose a mod for every of those and stitch a customized game just for yourself. Or you can you use Wabbajack or Nexus Mod Collections to install a curated mod list.

 

[mastroego]

mastroego mentioned using 300 arrows to kill a dangerous enemy with cannot handle head-on.

I'll just answer that you seem to have missed the point of that and other comments.

Everyone seem to agree that the last 2 years have been a true renaissance for Skyrim modding, with incredible advancements in animations and engine enchancements. Dozens of big mods that overhaul every city, enrich locations, tons of immersive little stuff like automatic animated helmet removal while in a city or out of combat, animations for basically everything you can imagine, even that recent big mod Animated Traversal with a patch that adds possiblity for climbing or going over obstacles (mostly for immersion). Hell, someone even made High Quality animated(!) lockpick screens for every type of chest. Not to mention dozens of incredible combat overhauls, everyone can pick something for themselves.

Me, at the moment, is considering this pack of mods by one author, created to overhaul the entire game into a cohesive, richer experience:
Aetherius - A Race Overhaul
Mundus - A Standing Stone Overhaul
Mysticism - A Magic Overhaul
Adamant - A Perk Overhaul
Arena - An Encounter Zone Overhaul
Blade and Blunt - A Combat Overhaul
Scion - A Vampire Overhaul
Manbeast - A Werewolf Overhaul
Apothecary - An Alchemy Overhaul
Pilgrim - A Religion Overhaul
Thaumaturgy - An Enchanting Overhaul
Hand to Hand - An Adamant Addon

The best part is that almost all of them are extremely modular, meaning you can pick and choose a mod for every of those and stitch a customized game just for yourself. Or you can you use Wabbajack or Nexus Mod Collections to install a curated mod list.

I won't deny that there might be more modern mods than Requiem, if only because I haven't been following the scene recently.

But I've been down the "modular" road, and I know where it leads: constant tinkering and never, ever, ever having an organic set of rules and systems (since you're the one moving the parts and ultimately know that your trying a patch-work of sorts) that last for any one character.
Requiem may have its issues but it removed the above one, at least for me, finally providing a GAME where I could follow the story arch of a character.

But I do wish you the best of luck in finding that perfect combination of mods to someday play together with satisfaction.

 

[Grunker]

But I've been down the "modular" road, and I know where it leads: constant tinkering and never, ever, ever having an organic set of rules and systems (since you're the one moving the parts and ultimately know that your trying a patch-work of sorts) that last for any one character.

which is why you play wildlander, which is an autistically maintained mod based on requiem

 

[Jarmaro]

which is why you play wildlander, which is an autistically maintained mod based on requiem

Out of curiosity, does Wildlander modify Requiem mechanics? I know Wildlander is a popular modlist, but its focus on survival mechanics drove me away. It's downright excessive, but I'm sure a lot of people love it.

 

[Yosharian]

Wildlander: this is the summary I wrote a while back using the wiki as a source.

1) Requiem in a tweaked format that includes Minor Arcana and Dragonborn patch
2) Alternate start support (skips initial tutorial section of Skyrim)
3) A tweaked character creation system which allows for more diverse options
4) Vastly improved combat using Wildcat and Mortal Enemies as well as many other mods
5) Survival mods so that you must eat, drink, sleep and manage your temperature to survive
6) New hunting mechanics from the Hunterborn mod
7) A modified crafting system using CCOR which was very time-consuming to set up
8) A completely new UI using a variety of UI mods and including a custom-built sneak meter
9) A dynamic economy and a variety of 'jobs' to perform in the game world
10) Realistic penalties for committing crimes, i.e. the gods stop you from receiving their blessings
11) More realistic factions, such as the College and the Thieves' Guild having actual requirements to join
12) Spell Research and new spell visuals - SR gives you many new ways to improve your spell-casting
13) Disabled fast-travel and thus the motivation to travel via carriages/ferries, and new horse features
14) A comprehensive suite of follower mods making them less shit (no Inigo yet, though Lucien is coming soon)
15) Population mods making Skyrim's world less barren from a people perspective
16) Player housing expansions
17) Quest improvements ranging from small to quite big
18) Immersive nights, conversations, names and other features
19) A variety of miscellaneous mods such as GIST
20) FINALLY, a much improved camera and much better third-person camera support (I play 1st-person myself but there you go)

There have probably been some changes since I wrote this

Wildlander's survival mechanics can be completely modified to suit your desired play style, you can probably turn them all off quite easily

 

[Crispy]

One of the most common complaints about Wildlander on their Discord is that Alchemy is broken, makes the game trivially easy.. And one of the most common responses to that complaint is to simply stop leveling Alchemy.

Personally, I don't see any value in playing an action RPG that requires me to continually drink potions. I've never done that in any RPG I've ever played and I likely never will, even if doing so provides a distinct advantage. Sure, the occasional healing pot, haste, whatever. But relying on them as "an alchemist"? No.

Another thing mentioned in Wildlander a lot is that even if you do specialize in Alchemy, by the time you're looking at end-game content, well, gee, you haven't actually maxed out any of your combat skills, so what do? And the response to that is that your edumb, to quote our own lovely Pretty Princess. Hell, even maxing out Archery (along with all its perks) in Wildlander isn't enough for most to get through end-game content; typically dragon priests' and other "bosses" super-fast regeneration is far too fast for archers to burn through rapidly enough.

Does that mean you have to have "the right build" to even complete a Wildlander run? I actually don't know, but at the rate my Illusionist/Conjurer is going, I'd say no. "Mage is op in Wildlander" may also be commonly repeated, but I don't even have a single perk in Destruction and I just recently took down my first dragon without too much trouble at level 35.

Are companions/followers common and "overhauled" at all in "stock" Requiem? They certainly are in Wildlander, and I swear half my enjoyment of playing it is hiring the ones I like the most, equipping them with the best gear I can find for them, and relying on them to progress steadily through the game. I'm having a blast so far.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah Alchemy is a bit underdeveloped at the moment

 

[Crispy]

I know Wildlander is a popular modlist, but its focus on survival mechanics drove me away. It's downright excessive, but I'm sure a lot of people love it.

Cold weather in Wildlander is deadly. There's no way around it, you have to learn to build fires, bring a tent with you, and/or know where some shelter is once you reach higher elevations. Getting caught in a blizzard can quickly kill you.

But, leveling up the skills added with the survival mechanics is (in my opinion) a bonus and provides for me at least another level of realism. Hunger and thirst are very easily managed; I find myself planning for excursions into the wilderness and into dungeons by stocking up on food beforehand as well as making sure I have enough wood in my horse's saddlebags to survive. It's become second nature to exploring in Wildlander. "Don't leave home without it."

I can understand how that might turn certain players off, but, trust me, once you get used to it, and plan for it, it's not that big of a deal.

 

[Jarmaro]

Yeah Alchemy is a bit underdeveloped at the moment

Almost everyone playing Requiem seem to agree that using one of the three Crafting trees - Alchemy, Smithing or Enchanting - is a must. Then why not just do the logical thing and remove the trees altogether and reintroduce them in different format as a mandatory choice for every character?

 

[Yosharian]

Ok so I asked a bit on the Discord and apparently a couple of things are coming in the next version (1.2)

1. Requiem Spell Research Alchemy patch
2. Alchemy Plus

I have no idea what these do but clearly Alchemy is going to be a focus in the next update

Actually Alchemy Plus is coming 'in the future' it might not be in 1.2

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Hell, someone even made High Quality animated(!) lockpick screens for every type of chest.

Oh you fucking know Skyrim modders made that mod:

Combine it with this shit for maximum immersion.

On a more serious note be careful with mods that alter the vanilla damage formula or NPC combat parameters like Wildcat or B&B. The actual experience can be infuriating. Lots of enemy bash spam with Wildcat or frequent one shot deaths with both because of unintended interactions with other mods. Would recommend Simply Balanced to help you manage the numbers. The weapon equalisation parameter alone is genius.

 

[Arthandas]

I'm getting random CTDs, how do you diagnose which plugin is responsible?

 

[Jarmaro]

I'm getting random CTDs, how do you diagnose which plugin is responsible?

Check moding history (if using Vortex, unsure if other managers have that) and disable every freshly installed mod until you detect which one's causing the issue.