Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Clockwork Knight]

I've only tried them separately, but I've read ERSO goes well alongside SPERG while keeping the general spirit of the game. The former makes everything more interesting but doesn't touch the perks (there are a few perk modules to rebalance some broken/useless vanilla skills but you can choose not to install them), the latter makes perks more interesting but doesn't touch anything else. ERSO already has AI modules but you could stick a combat mod like Revenge of The Enemies, Duel, Ultimate Combat or Deadly Combat on top of it. The description states it works well with Civil War Overhaul, too.

If anything, ERSO's dragon modules are worth using on its own. Stronger, unique dragons that only appear once in a while > cliffracers redux

"Legendary Cities: TES Arena" seems to only add some new towns, despite the impressive name. Sounds cool so I've downloaded it, but should make no real difference to gameplay.

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So the solution to player potentially finding a powerful item early is not only illogical scrubbery but forced loot and damage inflation? Besides, with such attitude why bother looking?

Well, this is the problem with open world. You either restrict use of stuff (level, protected by beef gate. unavailable until completion of a certain quest, etc), or you let the player immediately use whatever he finds even if it makes things much easier. The former feels artificial, the latter gets boring if you find good stuff early on, making combat easier and exploration less rewarding.

A possible solution is to make quality equipment fragile, which ensures a noob can use his lucky findings in a pinch but only an experienced character will be able to maintain it for regular use. Apparently Loot & Degradation works well with Requiem 1.8, so I'll try using that when I start a new Requiem character.

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Man, YASH and its unleveled world manages to be even more cruel than Requiem's static world. Started as a dunmer miner in Solstheim, decided to make some money because I can't even afford food (using iNeed, an alternative to Realistic Needs and Diseases). Thankfully I started in an abandoned building that had some food and drink laying around. Immediately pawn off my starting iron axe because with 0 skill it is just weighting me down. A dunmer's destruction starts at 7 which makes my flames spell my only real means of attacking until I can afford some training. I go along the shoreline looking into every bush and tree trunk, collecting assorted ingredients, clam meat and pearls. I try diving for more pearls but the water is fucking cold and this being Morrowind there are probably slaughterfish around. I hang around a bonfire to regain my dry clothes and warm body temperature so my stats go back to normal (using Hypothermia, alternative to Frostfall). Going back to the beach, I eventually run into a tower. A bandit pops up from the top and starts shooting at me, hurts like shit and makes me stagger but I manage to hide behind a rock. His melee buddy runs up to me and...Revered Bandit? He's really high level. Dunmer too, so I can't touch him with my flames. I jump into the water so I can escape without getting an arrow in the back.

Since harvest can fail in YASH I don't have much to sell other than a potion and some fish. I am interested in some fur armor because the sea and the windy side of the island freezes my ass off, which limits me to the town area and the beach. I could simply chop firewood for a while and sell it at the general store, but that would be admitting defeat. So I talk to people until someone offers me a job. The blacksmith says a miner borrowed his ancient nord pickaxe, used to mine stahlrim, and won't give it back. I find the guy inside the mine, but turns out he has his own problems. He wants to go down the mine and search for his great-grandfather's body, but his wife won't let him because he's an oldfag and would get himself killed. So naturally he trusts a complete stranger with the task of giving a decent burial to his ancestor. I grab a leather helmet from the shelves and ask him about the pickaxe. He says the smith likely stole it from the ashlanders, and it would be a waste to sell such a nice tool to some noble who would just hang it on a wall. Being too lazy to walk all the way back to the smith a miner myself, I understand the sentiment and let him keep it for now. If I find enough valuables down the mine, I may not need to bring the pickaxe back to the smith anyway.

The couple warned me about the mine walkways being unstable, but nothing unusual happened. I get to fight some spiders, best moments include punching one that got too close and exploding one that was hiding in a tunnel filled with flammable gas (conveniently I am a living flamethrower). Thankfully they only seem to spit webs instead of that horrid poison from Requiem. So yeah, I eventually reach the escavated nord ruins at the bottom and get ready for the inevitable draugr fight at the entrance...is that a fucking deathlord on the other room?



Currently wondering whether to just suck it down and board the ship to Skyrim, or chopping wood until I can buy warm clothes so I can explore the rest of the island.

this is a fun setup but the mostly vanilla perks are boring (and arbitrary shit like needing to know how to make fire enchantments before learning how to make frost enchantments which is a requirement to learn shock enchantments is worse than getting your dick caught in the zipper. What were they thinking? :avgn: ). Maybe I'll try slapping SPERG or ACE on top of this and see if something breaks.

 

[DraQ]

I have just made an Achmed The Dead Terrorist in Requiem yesterday and it was glorious.
Basically I gave a dead (well, more dead than usual) melee draugr J'Zargo's borked scroll, then raised him while battling the draugr horde in the cavern. Effect?
J'Zargo's scrolls are souped-up firecloaks that cause explosions in contact with undead, which is harmful to both the user and undead in question and thus not very useful - unless the user is not the PC, but a disposable walking corpse fighting other walking corpses resulting in many explosions and awesome.

Andhaira would be proud.

I don't know if it's repeatable without requiem, because I don't know if NPCs use scrolls then.
That's the thing that really helped Skyrim, especially modded with monocled mods, grow on me - you can cook up some epic, nearly Roguelike shit in it.
Maybe I'll try to mass raise (using Ritual stone) dead equipped with summoning scrolls next for massive gangbang, or mass gank a dragon priest with undead equipped with mass produced silver daggers (they are light so I could transport them in mass quantity)?
Maybe both?

Decisions...

If anything, ERSO's dragon modules are worth using on its own. Stronger, unique dragons that only appear once in a while > cliffracers redux

Yes. I use ERSO Mighty Dragons alongside with Requiem.
The only problem is that Super Mighty Dragons is still too easy with Requiem (Mirmulnir succumbs to concentrated Whiterun guard fire and Irileth's lightning bolts in seconds), while Nightmare Mighty Dragons is oh-god-why, with Mirmulnir Health failing to dip more than about two px due to excessive AC and good regen, and concentrated attacks of summons, guards, followers and Irileth going savage on his ass with her sword once managed to bring him to maybe 50% at one point, after which he just took off and regened.

Well, this is the problem with open world. You either restrict use of stuff (level, protected by beef gate. unavailable until completion of a certain quest, etc), or you let the player immediately use whatever he finds even if it makes things much easier. The former feels artificial, the latter gets boring if you find good stuff early on, making combat easier and exploration less rewarding.

I don't really consider beef gate artificial - if something is valuable, powerful and stays put, there must be a reason for that - otherwise it would have long since been pawned off by hobos.

A possible solution is to make quality equipment fragile, which ensures a noob can use his lucky findings in a pinch but only an experienced character will be able to maintain it for regular use.

For some items and materials it's a good solution.

I agree that reducing weapon damage might not be the best solution, but I'd say that Requiem goes even further in the wrong direction (even though I've enjoyed playing it). If you pick up a bow for the first time in your life, I'd doubt you'd be a deadly sniper with it, as you could in Requiem.

Actually, it's the case of it not going far enough in the right direction. You should simply get massive dispersion cones when noobshooting. Also, the bows are arguably the only weapons for which damage scaling makes sense (because a good part of archery is tons of good ol' upper body strength) - along with range, velocity and armor modifier scaling.

Considering the size and weight of a two-handed glass axe my mage should have tripped just trying to swing it.

Actually, a sensible weapon (portrayal aside), even 2h will be a couple of kilos tops. They are meant to be swung fast enough that the other combatant won't just walk away or lazily parry every attack and they are meant to be swung repeatedly.
As for glass, it's about third of density of iron IRL and the weapon weights were consistent with that in Morrowind, so I'm sticking with it. Of course it's also material that should be easy to damage and hard to maintain, so not exactly noob-friendly.

Yet she could one-shot wolves with it; sure, she'd run out of stamina while doing it, but that's not much.

Given that stamina is the king in Requiem (it's even required for casting without incurring massive cost penalty), running out of stamina after first (even potentially lethal) swing, is very much a showstopper.

The difference is it won't drain your stamina just by standing still.

That's a plus, but you should get protection even when usnkilled.
I really appreciate the divide between HA and mobility-oriented LA perks in Requiem, rather than just have two similar armor skills.

It's a nice mechanics for a beginner mage. Spells fail less often the higher your skill is, though, so most likely I'll run into the same problem as with Requiem, where the difficulty for higher level mages just falls flat.

Spell failure is a good mechanics and can be extended to higher levels by adding difficult high-tier spells.

That's the problem with hand placed loot.

Optimal solution would be having multiple possible locations for unique items, and breadcrumb trails adjusted (or swapped) to fit.

 

[hell bovine]

Currently wondering whether to just suck it down and board the ship to Skyrim, or chopping wood until I can buy warm clothes so I can explore the rest of the island.

this is a fun setup but the mostly vanilla perks are boring (and arbitrary shit like needing to know how to make fire enchantments before learning how to make frost enchantments which is a requirement to learn shock enchantments is worse than getting your dick caught in the zipper. What were they thinking? :avgn: ). Maybe I'll try slapping SPERG or ACE on top of this and see if something breaks.

You could try SPERG combined with ASIS to give the new perks to enemies as well, should be fun with unleveled critters. Unfortunately I've run into a gamestopper in the form of workload for now, so I can't test it myself. (Do you actually need to learn all those perks in enchantment? I was under the impression that despite the way skill trees are displayed, you can take perks without prerequisites.)

Given that stamina is the king in Requiem (it's even required for casting without incurring massive cost penalty), running out of stamina after first (even potentially lethal) swing, is very much a showstopper.

Between cannibalism (Bosmer are now my favourite mages) and alchemy, loosing the entire stamina bar was not that problematic when playing a beginner mage in Requiem. At level one spells were quite useless when it came to killing wolves, and the shiny glass axe was simply better. It was just easier to continue with bow & axe, without any skill investment, when trying to get alteration up as fast as possible, because the first offensive spell you get only at alteration 50.

That's a plus, but you should get protection even when usnkilled.
I really appreciate the divide between HA and mobility-oriented LA perks in Requiem, rather than just have two similar armor skills.

You get protection (I didn't really play that much with armors), but with heavy armor the stamina and slowing down penalties were too much to make it useful in combat. With light armor I think it would be possible to use something slightly above your skill. And if I remember Requiem correctluy, you can't really use heavy armor without any perks in it because of stamina drain. What YASH misses out are spellcasting penalties, but I got the impression that the mod author was trying to 'beef up' Skyrim, while staying close to original game. The advantage is, that the perk overhaul is optional, so you can replace it.

 

[DraQ]

Given that stamina is the king in Requiem (it's even required for casting without incurring massive cost penalty), running out of stamina after first (even potentially lethal) swing, is very much a showstopper.

Between cannibalism (Bosmer are now my favourite mages) and alchemy, loosing the entire stamina bar was not that problematic when playing a beginner mage in Requiem.

That's quite the contrary to my experience.
In my experience stamina is the one bar that's always empty and the one you always lack the potions for.

Maybe if you're going pure caster (meaning you shun physical combat) or just keep axing wolves (which aren't hard to kill) it isn't the case, but as far as I can tell even lowly bandits will make stamina a problem if you supplement your magic with any physical attacks whatsoever.

Then again, I didn't play as Bosmer and likely differ in both build and playstyle.

 

[Thane Solus]

Best mod of Skyrim is the:



purge /uninstall mod

 

[DraQ]

Best mod of Skyrim is the:



purge /uninstall mod

I'd tell you when it was funny but my calendar only goes back to -32767.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What YASH misses out are spellcasting penalties, but I got the impression that the mod author was trying to 'beef up' Skyrim, while staying close to original game. The advantage is, that the perk overhaul is optional, so you can replace it.

In some ways, it's more punishing than Requiem's method.

Cuirasses and boots will slow you down. Helmets will slow your magicka regeneration, gauntlets will double the spell cost and halve the spell magnitude. Spells have a chance to fail, skill dependent.

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You could try SPERG combined with ASIS to give the new perks to enemies as well, should be fun with unleveled critters. Unfortunately I've run into a gamestopper in the form of workload for now, so I can't test it myself. (Do you actually need to learn all those perks in enchantment? I was under the impression that despite the way skill trees are displayed, you can take perks without prerequisites.)

Skipping unwanted perks is an optional feature...that I picked and forgot about. For some reason the fact they're still visually "linked" made me forget about that.

SPERG seems to work fine, even though I don't know about the balancing implications down the road (it gives you perks every other level, YASH slows down leveling). Immersive Creatures adds additional animal and monster spawns. I'm leaving humanoids alone for now because that might make things 2hardcore4me

(edit: scratch that, seems like SPERG is giving me Light Armor XP at an incredibly fast speed just for walking. I gained three levels going from one end of Raven Rock to the other )

Oh, and about the warm clothes...a wandering hunter generously donated me hers after a high-powered business meeting. Such is life in Morrowind.

Unfortunately, there are ash monsters on the cold side of the island and I can't really do anything to them with my shitty fire spell or my flame cloak racial power. Dunmer sux

 

[Incantatar]

I'm masochistic and play Requiem ironman atm. My high elf mage reached lvl 26 and got killed by a fucking invisible lightning trap around some altar in the open, near Winterhold. I was riding fully invincible on my ghostly steed through the ether and saw a staff laying on the ground. Got off the horse - boom - dead. I even invested perks in MR to no help.

My second mage died at lvl 9 jumping from a cliff trying to train Restoration. The jump only mildly hurt my mage no.1, so i didn't think it'll kill him.

Trying a two handed knight at the moment. I installed Death Alternative so i have sometimes a chance to survive and just loose my shit. I'm not giving him long without invisibility and sneak.

 

[Thane Solus]

Best mod of Skyrim is the:



purge /uninstall mod

I'd tell you when it was funny but my calendar only goes back to -32767.

 

[hell bovine]

Maybe if you're going pure caster (meaning you shun physical combat) or just keep axing wolves (which aren't hard to kill) it isn't the case, but as far as I can tell even lowly bandits will make stamina a problem if you supplement your magic with any physical attacks whatsoever.

Then again, I didn't play as Bosmer and likely differ in both build and playstyle.

I don't play much melee, but I've found stamina wasn't a problem for a 'humanitarian' caster, because the regeneration bonus lasts through combat (and outside of combat fills the stamina bar so quickly it just disappears). Later spells take over; e.g. with alteration you can continue to melee if you pick up paralyze, with illusion you can use hibernation and so on. In my experience a 'battlemage' approach, where instead of going for spells & armor, you take the spells for defense and pick up a weapon for offense is much easier to play, especially since 'mage armor' gets to ridiculous numbers later on.

Skipping unwanted perks is an optional feature...that I picked and forgot about. For some reason the fact they're still visually "linked" made me forget about that.

SPERG seems to work fine, even though I don't know about the balancing implications down the road (it gives you perks every other level, YASH slows down leveling). Immersive Creatures adds additional animal and monster spawns. I'm leaving humanoids alone for now because that might make things 2hardcore4me

(edit: scratch that, seems like SPERG is giving me Light Armor XP at an incredibly fast speed just for walking. I gained three levels going from one end of Raven Rock to the other )

Oh, and about the warm clothes...a wandering hunter generously donated me hers after a high-powered business meeting. Such is life in Morrowind.

Unfortunately, there are ash monsters on the cold side of the island and I can't really do anything to them with my shitty fire spell or my flame cloak racial power. Dunmer sux

You could use SkyTweak to lower the skill experience gain. My problem with SPERG was that it tends to make your character too powerful at higher skill levels. But the same goes for NPCs if you use ASIS, so it's fair game. :D

 

[DraQ]

I'd tell you when it was funny but my calendar only goes back to -32767.

Yeah, I probably need a bigger one.
<--

I don't play much melee, but I've found stamina wasn't a problem for a 'humanitarian' caster, because the regeneration bonus lasts through combat (and outside of combat fills the stamina bar so quickly it just disappears). Later spells take over; e.g. with alteration you can continue to melee if you pick up paralyze, with illusion you can use hibernation and so on. In my experience a 'battlemage' approach, where instead of going for spells & armor, you take the spells for defense and pick up a weapon for offense is much easier to play, especially since 'mage armor' gets to ridiculous numbers later on.

Currently going for traditional Battlemage build - tincan, prebuff/summon/arty, then butcher anything still standing with a massive 2h weapon.

It's basically a rehash of my experiment I started in an earlier version of Requiem, and it's been, expectedly, slow and hard start, but it got better afterwards.
I aim to dual Atronach+Ritual using Aetherial Circlet later on.
Mana regen is secondary to my build, as I have to switch, frontloading mana pool would be nice, so would absorption (tincans do suffer from susceptibility to hostile magic), and Ritual is pretty powerful when used smartly.

Cuirasses and boots will slow you down. Helmets will slow your magicka regeneration, gauntlets will double the spell cost and halve the spell magnitude. Spells have a chance to fail, skill dependent.

I'd like to see this sort of mechanics in Requiem. Tying armor penalties to where the armor is worn is a neat idea.

(edit: scratch that, seems like SPERG is giving me Light Armor XP at an incredibly fast speed just for walking. I gained three levels going from one end of Raven Rock to the other )

Lol, wut?

 

[Delterius]

To improve the latest version of Requiem I offer to you.... a fitting conclusion to Morrowind's great mystery of the dwemers.



Also, better than Skywind.

 

[Delterius]

Saw a video on this one and I think some people might like it.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52397/

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well, this is the problem with open world. You either restrict use of stuff (level, protected by beef gate. unavailable until completion of a certain quest, etc), or you let the player immediately use whatever he finds even if it makes things much easier. The former feels artificial, the latter gets boring if you find good stuff early on, making combat easier and exploration less rewarding.

Case in point. Started as a bandit in Valtheim Towers, and these are the contents of the chest right next to me. I guess it's because it uses the "boss chest" model

Unrelated adventures in Alternate Start:

"Drinking blood? Pfft, too mainstream."

So only pretty ladies can walk around in underwear? Typical feminist hypocrisy.

I'M A GOOOOOOAT

I CAN WALK ON THE RIVERBED

FUCK YOUUUUUUUU SWIMFAGSSSSSSSSS

I'M A GOOOOOOAT

 

[the_shadow]

The existence of this thread confuses me. Why on earth does Skyrim need mods? It's perfect the way it is.

 

[Delterius]

The existence of this thread confuses me. Why on earth does Skyrim need mods? It's perfect the way it is.

 

[aweigh]

Since FNV is pretty much a fully realized game mechanics-wise anyone who plays it for multiple playthroughs will come to the conclusion that there really isn't any need for a lot of mods to "fix" the game; the game doesn't need fixing.

The only mods I use nowadays on the (now) very rare occasions I fire up FNV are:

1) 50% slower backpedal speed. This is a very subtle change that affects the core game experience. No more kiting enemies by running backwards and shooting. You need to bob and weave and/or strategise your mobility.

2) Stimpaks (and all AID/CHEMS) are 1.0lbs in weight. No more 80 stimpaks weighing 0 pounds and being "free". When you go out to adventure and take 40 stimpaks with you then that's 40 fucking pounds you need to account for inside your inventory. Should've been like this from the start; besides if I remember correctly FO1 and FO2 Stimpaks weighed something.

3) Very rare probability of ammo, chems and aid items to spawn inside containers. Self-explenatory.

4) Nerfed Barter skill. Self-explenatory. 50% as potent; no more becoming rich by buying and selling back to the same person.

That's it. Those are the only mods I consider "core" or "necessary" to improve the FNV experience. Now for the point of this shitpost:

To all you Skyrim aficionados who've dug through the Skyrim nexus page by page, entry by entry, just like I've done with the FNV nexus: what 5 mods are necessary to improve the core experience?

Think hard about my question. I'm not asking for graphics mods, or texture mods, or colour mods, or starry night sky mods, or cut-content mods...

I'm asking you what mods ENHANCE or "repair" the underlying game mechanics in order to make the playing experience more coherent. Think very hard! Potatoes for anyone who answers

 

[aweigh]

and please, individual mods only.

none of that "lol just install SkyRe or Req" bullshit that changes the entire game into weeabo fantasy shit.

 

[Jaesun]

Uninstall.exe is the best mod available for Skyrim.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

"Please solve my problem in a very specific way"

Are you a girl? Just install SkyRe or Requiem.

 

[Ziem]

Requiem changes the entire game into weeaboo fantasy shit?

 

[Perkel]

Dude install Requiem. and install killamove control (to switch off cinematic kills).

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Think hard about my question.

Hnnnnnngh!

Think very hard!

Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh!

Requiem changes the entire game into weeaboo fantasy shit?

Anything that messes with perfection that is Skyrim is weeaboo fantasy shit. Its hardline realism is difficult enough to come by in the simulation genre as it is, these days.

 

[Perkel]

Or maybe dudes wants something that mashes well with his collection of sex mods ?

wrong forum i guess

 

[aweigh]

wrong people. i thought i was asking people who knew skyrim inside out and could name 5 essential mods off the top of their heads that had nothing to do with graphics or extra-content. i was wrong.