Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Ravielsk]

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

The usual process is to identify a scenario where the game always CTDs and then start turning plugins off until it does not CTD.

 

[Arthandas]

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.

I don't have any "freshly" installed mods, I installed everything I wanted one by one. I launched the game only to test if everything is working properly (and it was).
After setting everything up I now started playing for real and getting random CTDs.

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

The usual process is to identify a scenario where the game always CTDs and then start turning plugins off until it does not CTD.

There is no such scenario.

I installed a crash logger, but it's Chinese to me:
https://pastebin.com/mzPEwnqw

 

[HumanTotemPole]

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.

I don't have any "freshly" installed mods, I installed everything I wanted one by one. I launched the game only to test if everything is working properly (and it was).
After setting everything up I now started playing for real and getting random CTDs.

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

The usual process is to identify a scenario where the game always CTDs and then start turning plugins off until it does not CTD.

There is no such scenario.

I installed a crash logger, but it's Chinese to me:
https://pastebin.com/cfCn6DKS

Not very good at crash log interpretation but I'd try nuking Rain Extinguishes Fires - seems to be generating some kind of object issue in the Whiterun Watchtower Exterior Cell.

 

[Arthandas]

Not very good at crash log interpretation but I'd try nuking Rain Extinguishes Fires - seems to be generating some kind of object issue in the Whiterun Watchtower Exterior Cell.

Interesting, I'm playing in/around Whiterun so this may be it, thanks!
Btw, I posted a better log with more info thanks to mod organizer plugin.

 

[Jarmaro]

How long do you think it is going to take for someone to make a mod adding AI voice to the main character's dialogue lines (there aren't many of them), and how soon after someone will make the voice to be Todd Howard's?

 

[NecroLord]

Is there a Skyrim mod which adds Attributes? You know, like in the good old days of Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind?

 

[Jarmaro]

Quick report from playing with Adamant overhaul and other complementary mods made by Simon. Played around 2 hours and having a blast, I died like ten times before I got around how the new system works. It's still difficult, but everything feels much smoother and like actual game. At first I was ambivalent about the simplicity of the perks, but author's 'every perk should be meaningful and impactful right from the moment you pick it' seems to be the right one. Just a few levels and I already want every single one from every tree because they are that useful. I even consider taking perks from Security (combined Lockpicking and Pick-pocketing trees) or Speechcraft because just one perk in each would do a lot for me. This is how a good deisgn looks like.

Is there a Skyrim mod which adds Attributes? You know, like in the good old days of Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind?

There are some, like this one, or this one, but introducing classic attribute system into Skyrim world is...extremely fetishistic. The game is not designed around it, making it a doomed endeavour right from the start.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Decided I'd give Wildlander a try. Had to subscribe to premium nexus because really, who has the time to manually download 550 mods, this is insane !

 

[BruceVC]

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.

That survival aspect of Wildlander is exactly what I enjoy, thats a huge positive for me

 

[BruceVC]

Decided I'd give Wildlander a try. Had to subscribe to premium nexus because really, who has the time to manually download 550 mods, this is insane !

I also have Nexus premium, its worth it. I have faith you can download all those mods...be positive my son !!!

 

[Dwarvophile]

Decided I'd give Wildlander a try. Had to subscribe to premium nexus because really, who has the time to manually download 550 mods, this is insane !

I also have Nexus premium, its worth it. I have faith you can download all those mods...be positive my son !!!

Well, as a casual gamer, and not playing so many modded games, I'm not sure I will keep the premium. Is it as helpful to keep the mods updated ?

 

[BruceVC]

Decided I'd give Wildlander a try. Had to subscribe to premium nexus because really, who has the time to manually download 550 mods, this is insane !

I also have Nexus premium, its worth it. I have faith you can download all those mods...be positive my son !!!

Well, as a casual gamer, and not playing so many modded games, I'm not sure I will keep the premium. Is it as helpful to keep the mods updated ?

Yes I keep my mods updated but only for troubleshooting purpose. I normally use hundreds of mods and once the game is " stable " I dont really update them. Also mods dont get updated all the time so in a typical playthrough of Oblivion or Morrowind it normally takes me 3-4 weeks so most mods dont get updated during the time I play

 

[BruceVC]

Not very good at crash log interpretation but I'd try nuking Rain Extinguishes Fires - seems to be generating some kind of object issue in the Whiterun Watchtower Exterior Cell.

Interesting, I'm playing in/around Whiterun so this may be it, thanks!
Btw, I posted a better log with more info thanks to mod organizer plugin.

Good luck with resolving your CTD, I have learnt lots about troubleshooting CTD and sometimes 1-2 mods out of hundreds can cause the problem. One thing I would suggest is post your mod list on Nexus and if you lucky people will say " this mod is problematic "

Another way to resolve a mod problem is to hopefully find an area where the game CTD all the time, then disable half your mods and see if still CTD. Then be more specific and work your way down disabling groups of mods until you find the problematic mods. It takes time but it works

 

[Jarmaro]

Been playing Skyrim while listening to the entire series of Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim retrospectives and something hit me. Let's take Companions from Skyrim, for instance. One of the most hated aspects of the faction is mandatory Werewolf transformation. You are not allowed to just say 'No.' You cannot go to Kodlak (the leader of Companions) and say you were offered the blood. There is no possibility to refuse. But what if...changed it? There are already mods that do it, but they appear clunky and patch-works at best. But now with the power of AI the last barrier of making Vanilla Skyrim better has been broken.

There are some mods that attempt to overhaul the faction questline, like The Conflict Under the Crescent - A Companions and Silver Hand Mod (the author has similar mods for Thief's Guild and Dark Brotherhood), but it lacks voices and is apparently extremely buggy - so much that the vanilla questline isn't possible with the mod, only the option to defect and join The Silver Hand faction. From the author's own comment:

I'm going to start the probably long, and possibly annoying, process of making the Companions questline work with my mod. Fun fact, my "master" script that my quests always reference back to is about 213 lines long. The vanilla companions script that does the same thing is 1232 lines long, almost six times the length. I will probably make large sweeping changes to the questline and scripts, so expect some weirdness until it all is fixed. As I work on this I will still release bugfixes for the current content. Some of you with keen eyes (or those snooping around in my code/esp), may notice edits to the Companions questline. This does not mean it is done, these will just be WIP snippets. I'll let you know when it's in a playable state.
For now, I leave you with two comments from the vanilla script:

; lord, so much duplicated code here... this grew "organically" and is now hideous.
; do not look here for examples of good tidy code.

Now, with the power of AI, we can go even further. Factions changed. Quests added. More reactivity to everything. Especially the Main Quest. You are an Archmage? Leader of the Companions? Champion of the Civil War? Special interactions during the Main Quest (which would be more reactivity than even Morrowind had). More choices, deeper delve into the lore. Hell, let's rewrite the entire Main Quest into something deeper. I'm myself am tempted to try and tinker with something like that, I wouldn't even look far for ideas as there've been dozens on in-depth videos on why Vanilla Skyrim sucks in many places. Actually, I'm so tempted I've already downloaded Creation Kit and started looking up how it works. Will se how hard it is change the dialogue and then insert the AI.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Quick report from playing with Adamant overhaul and other complementary mods made by Simon. Played around 2 hours and having a blast, I died like ten times before I got around how the new system works. It's still difficult, but everything feels much smoother and like actual game. At first I was ambivalent about the simplicity of the perks, but author's 'every perk should be meaningful and impactful right from the moment you pick it' seems to be the right one. Just a few levels and I already want every single one from every tree because they are that useful. I even consider taking perks from Security (combined Lockpicking and Pick-pocketing trees) or Speechcraft because just one perk in each would do a lot for me. This is how a good deisgn looks like.

Simon's stuff tends to be more considered than the other popular overhauls out there. Doesn't get as wild with it as EnaiSiaion's ubiquitous mods do but it's evident that actual thought was put into how the changes would interface with Skyrim's standard gameplay loops.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

tens of characters and hundreds of hours later, my strongest feeling toward the game is "i miss requiem". no amount of mods can make up for it. so damn sad.

 

[Dwarvophile]

I saw there's a key to simply roast food on the campfire, how does it work ? I can't grill shit!

 

[Crispy]

In Wildlander it's supposed to be the right shift key. Are you close enough to the fire? Are you trying to cook already cooked food?

 

[Dwarvophile]

In Wildlander it's supposed to be the right shift key. Are you close enough to the fire? Are you trying to cook already cooked food?

oh right, for some reason I confused it with another key, thx

 

[Dwarvophile]

In Wildlander it's supposed to be the right shift key. Are you close enough to the fire? Are you trying to cook already cooked food?

oh right, for some reason I confused it with another key, thx

Well, the Wildlander manual misled me : "Food can be purchased from the Inn or by cooking raw meat at the fire using the (Hotkey > )".

Always read the manual they say...

 

[Fargus]

 

[Jarmaro]

Tired of unimpressive Skyrim dialogues, quests and characters? Want to see a version of Skyrim that plays to its strengths, dungeon delving and looting? Solo Hack&slash experience? There's mod just for you.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/85133?tab=descriptio

Alternate Skyrim - World Eater SE AE​

Alternate Skyrim removes the game intro, all signs of ongoing civilization, removes almost every non-animal, creature or undead, destroys almost all villages, destroys all cities, moves cities into the Tamriel Worldspace removing load doors and Navmeshes those changes so NPCs can use them seamlessly.

World Eater is a Draugr Apocalypse addon with Dragons and a mini Main Quest.

Alternate Skyrim and World Eater are likely incompatible with mods that make changes to existing Bethesda locations.
Mod added NPCs that never leave interior cells or instanced cities will also never appear without console commands.

Mods that will likely work without issue are gameplay, texture, mesh and sound mods.
Mods that add new locations away from existing Bethesda locations should also be fine.

Images

Video from the base mod that merely destroys Skyrim, without adding monsters.

On one hand, it looks kinda dumb. On the other though...I unironically feel an urge to give it a try. Reminds of that one mod that changed Oblvion's prologue sewer exit into a series of 40 back-to-back dungeons.


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Update: The enemy spawning is exhausting, I fought and killed a Dragon and Dragon Priest at level 2 but it was tiresome because draugrs enemies keep spawning around. Later on the problem only increase. I don't think I can recommend it at the moment.

 

[Dwarvophile]

With Wildlander, I don't know if it's a bug, but with High Graphics/Low Shaders there's a shadow moving ahead of my character in plain daylight. Whatever the amount of sun. It's subtle, just making the environment a bit grayer. It's like if there was a cloud following on top of my character everywhere. Doesn't happen with High graphics/No Shaders and with Ultra/Low Shaders this only happens on the grounds that are already shadows; making it almost indistinguishable. So I guess, it might be caused by ENB...

 

[Crispy]

Are you running Standard Modlist or Performance Modlist?

If the former, then you shouldn't have any real problem running High or Ultra graphics. If the latter, that's probably why it's happening.

Don't try to change between Standard Modlist and Performance Modlist on the same save. It'll corrupt it.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Are you running Standard Modlist or Performance Modlist?

If the former, then you shouldn't have any real problem running High or Ultra graphics. If the latter, that's probably why it's happening.

Don't try to change between Standard Modlist and Performance Modlist on the same save. It'll corrupt it.

I'm running standard modlist. But with a laptop (with a RTX 2060 mobile & i7-10750H), and the performances aren't stellar.

EDIT : Actually, it's better now. The performances are the same but there are less graphic glitches. Maybe because I reloaded the shaders...