Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[cretin]

a comparison of various interior lighting mods for SSE:



once again, notice how vanilla actually is not only the most consistent, but actually the best overall. In some very few cases, and according to personal taste, i would give ELFX the edge. One of the top comments is "There's no goddamn way that was vanilla" - yes, dolt, it is. This is indicative of the very common presumption people who owned oldrim have that skyrim SE is not any different, or only marginally so. No, its a proper update to the visuals. On reddit i once posted screenshots and the guy asked me what enb i was using. I said none, because, well, i wasn't. He insisted i was lying, because it had "obvious enb effects like AO and high detail shadows", i was like hey retard you know SE has AO and much higher resolution shadows than oldrim right? He owned the game and never even noticed because he modded the hell out of it without even trying it first. I still dont use an ENB, because while there are a few things enb's do that look legitimately good, most of it is not worth the extremely aggressive FPS hit - over 40 frames in some cases.

 

[anvi]

Looked better for me, that looks yellowy.

 

[Hirato]

I tried ELFX in oldrim, and just kept using it with SSE.
Only issue I really have with vanilla (also true of oldrim) is that Bethesda is (likely due to console limitations) quite shy with shadowing lights.


Many of them make good set pieces, but many of them also go way overboard.
A particular pet peeve of mine is how many of them make interiors super dark to the point where you almost can't see anything.
And then exteriors are even worse; ground is pitch black, yet the sky littered with bright stars, a glowing aurora, and a full moon.

Just consider that video.
The author of Relighting Skyrim probably deleted all the ambient lights and didn't put very much thought into how light would bounce around and illuminate the area in a lot of spaces, the riverwood trader being a key example.

 

[cretin]

I tried ELFX in oldrim, and just kept using it with SSE.
Only issue I really have with vanilla (also true of oldrim) is that Bethesda is (likely due to console limitations) quite shy with shadowing lights.


Many of them make good set pieces, but many of them also go way overboard.
A particular pet peeve of mine is how many of them make interiors super dark to the point where you almost can't see anything.
And then exteriors are even worse; ground is pitch black, yet the sky littered with bright stars, a glowing aurora, and a full moon.

Just consider that video.
The author of Relighting Skyrim probably deleted all the ambient lights and didn't put very much thought into how light would bounce around and illuminate the area in a lot of spaces, the riverwood trader being a key example.

Yes, a lot of those lighting mods dont seem to understand ambient light, and I cant tell if its just modder retardation, or if they do it because it looks "cooleR" or more dramatic.

 

[Hirato]

Yes, a lot of those lighting mods dont seem to understand ambient light, and I cant tell if its just modder retardation, or if they do it because it looks "cooleR" or more dramatic.

I understand the intent since I used to be that way too.
Anyone who starts messing with game engines will usually want lighting to only come from visible light sources.
3 candles there? each of them gets a light!
A chandelier there? a light for each candle!
etc.

It's a fine intent, but not one overly practical without some sort of radiosity or raytracing.

 

[cretin]

working on trying to unsuck this game with as few mods as possible. I already got it looking pretty good with just the cathedral mods (project leader jonnywang is a kindred spirit i think, seems to dislike modder pretentiousness and people who try to replace every fucking asset in the game), enhanced vanilla trees (might replace this with simply bigger trees, i honestly cant tell the difference between vanilla trees and EVT) DyndoLOD using the hybrid 3d trees option, and volumetric mists. ELFX hardcore for interior lighting - its actually not anywhere near as dark as advertised, e.g plenty of ambient light in dungeons/caves and so on, one would need a torch to see fine detail or well hidden items in some cases, but not just to move around.

Onto the gameplay now. Searching for "rpg mods" or "immersion mods" is a total waste of time, redditfags seem to have a very different idea of what constitutes these things, or they have some fucking gauntlet of mods they think you should download and in the end it involves creating patches and autistically editing tables to get it all to work together - fuck OFF, modding is already a chore as it is. Man, I guarantee you, if you tested any given skyrim modding "community" there would be a disproportionate amount of people on the spectrum vs normies. So, anyway, I decided on Requiem conversion for SSE, but its not quite enough by itself. I got JK's skyrim to make the settlements more appropriately busy, and Missives (think witcher 3 style notice boards except its all radiant tasks. I find this a great way to have shit to do early game in Requiem because unlike Fluent I'm not a manchild and need game reasons to do things instead of just imagining it). One of the problems that sticks out to me is the lack of consequences for dying, to that end: shit like Dead is Dead is too much, skyrim is not suitable for ironman runs and doing the early game over and over again would be very dull. So i found a mod called Ashes which sets a respawn point and gives you configurable punishments for dying (gold loss, XP loss, item loss etc). Thinking about coupling that with something like Skyrim SafeSave to prevent savescumming or reloading after dying.

I'm open to suggestions on other mods, chiefly I'm thinking about ways to make this less popamole. Mostly I'm looking for small mods that have large impact.

EDIT: survival mods? I'm on the fence about these. Having the elements be an extra danger to be aware of is good, but I found shit like frostfall to be anti-immersive because you're literally the only dude who is panicking about the cold, everyone else is just strolling around like its a summer day even in the northern regions. Needs mods are kind of obnoxious, i like how YASH handled food organically by just merely having it give you stamina/magicka bonuses. Requiem doesnt do that and instead relegates food to being really shit healing/stamina potions that you can only use outside of combat.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[compvet24]

EDIT: survival mods? I'm on the fence about these. Having the elements be an extra danger to be aware of is good, but I found shit like frostfall to be anti-immersive because you're literally the only dude who is panicking about the cold, everyone else is just strolling around like its a summer day even in the northern regions. Needs mods are kind of obnoxious, i like how YASH handled food organically by just merely having it give you stamina/magicka bonuses. Requiem doesnt do that and instead relegates food to being really shit healing/stamina potions that you can only use outside of combat.

I downloaded a few economy mods to regulate chances of finding super rare stuff early (Morrowloot Ultimate), amount of gold found in the world, value of items and merchants having tons of gold that changes daily. Drastically helped regulate my player from having 10,000 gold after going through 5 quests. Needs mods are obnoxious but I enjoyed them occasionally, usually teetered into the larpy side. I played with the iNeed - Food Water and Sleep mod, as it wasn't nearly as obnoxious as anything else I installed and was decently fair in consequences/bonuses. Had some camping mods to allow sleep when I wasn't near a town, where you can be charged a certain amount by guards if you sleep inside a hold. Additionally I added higher prices for inns and taverns depending on where they are, so Solitude inns for example will be quite expensive while taverns in the middle of bumfuck nowhere will still be cheap.

 

[Oracsbox]

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/33068
For those who want a minimal survival experience this is fairly decent.
Not too in your face and gives enough reason to sleep and eat.

Very nice weather mod
Probably the first one I've used that always looks good.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/38652
Good colour balance.

 

[DraQ]

I downloaded a few economy mods to regulate chances of finding super rare stuff early (Morrowloot Ultimate)

I have abandoned Morrowloot a long time ago for this reason. It's way too easy to just stumble upon artifacts of lore with it. This and also artifacts having boring enchantments.

I mostly use this guy's mods for my MOAR artifacts neds:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/2531318

 

[mastroego]

If there's a game where such a thing may somehow feel fitting, it's Skyrim/Requiem.
Some items have been lost by chance in stupid places. Some are kept in a museum but you can steal them.
I like that.

And I haven't found that many in my long (LONG) travels anyway.

 

[Luzur]

ok here is a prime example of what im talking about. The following a video from a modding guide that includes some 800+ mods and would take you over a week of fucking around to complete... and look how fucking SHIT this looks



Seriously if you have skyrim SE, just install it, and go through the intro sequence and then try to tell me with a straight face that this looks better. IT doesn't, it looks worse, a LOT worse.

whats up with the native indian techno at the menu? :D

 

[waken]

ok here is a prime example of what im talking about. The following a video from a modding guide that includes some 800+ mods and would take you over a week of fucking around to complete... and look how fucking SHIT this looks



Seriously if you have skyrim SE, just install it, and go through the intro sequence and then try to tell me with a straight face that this looks better. IT doesn't, it looks worse, a LOT worse.

whats up with the native indian techno at the menu? :D

Skyrim belongs to the sámi

 

[Cat Dude]

All TES games consists of 90% fetch, kill bandit x quests and get rewards. 10% meh and forgettable main quests.

 

[anvi]

It doesn't matter what you do to the menu or the graphics or anything else, you can install 100 mods and it becomes beautiful but you are still playing shitty Skyrim. A game with 3 levels, 3 classes, 3 dungeons, 3 quests, and 3 voice actors.

 

[racofer]

Vanilla Skyrim:

Modded Skyrim:

 

[Erikkolai]

Starting to feel a pull towards inserting myself into the Simperial VS Stormchad conflict again.

Haven't touched Skyrim since 2014 or so, and never tried the Special Edition.

Do most people who play Requiem still use the original game, or are the SE-ports reliable?

 

[Lambach]

I'm ashamed of how much time I put into Requiem. Over the last 6 years or so, it's probably close to 700-800 hours.

P. addictive shit if you're in the market for a decent de-leveled open world not named "Gothic".

Do most people who play Requiem still use the original game, or are the SE-ports reliable?

Requiem is not compatible with SE, I think, only LE.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I don't understand why people play Requiem. It's like if you take the shit that is Skyrim and de-level it, suddenly it's good? OH HELL NO.

The combat is still utter shit, as is the writing, the quests, the exploration, etc.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Lambach]

It's like if you take the shit that is Skyrim and de-level it, suddenly it's good?

Well, that's not the only change Requiem introduces. The biggest appeal of it is that "zero-to-hero" feeling and surviving the early-mid game. Late game is kind of a slog, barring some areas (Soul Cairn, Sovngarde etc.), but getting to that late game with non-standard builds is the biggest appeal (if you don't cheese and abuse the system).

 

[mastroego]

It's mostly the perception of a true progress of your character imho, since the world and the enemies aren't adapted to you in Requiem.
It's a rare thing in games and done very well in Requiem.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Fuck the invisible entities though.

 

[Lambach]

Fuck the invisible entities though.

They've been reworked in later versions (3.0 and onward, or 3.x-something, I forgot). Now they're basically just uber-buffed Dremora that are invisible until they hit you or they themselves get hit and are called "Slighted". Purely Stat-wise, I think they're somewhat stronger, but they're not such a pain in the ass to fight anymore.

 

[cretin]

Requiem is a great mod but indeed it does not fix fundamental problems with skyrim. While it certainly makes "builds" feel more meaningful in terms of perks and abilities (no more being a I CAN DO.. WELL. EVERYTHING), nothing fixes the utter lack of world reactivity or choice. Skyrim plays almost identically whether you're a 2 handed axe wielding orc, or a khajit thief. Its very telling that the most fun people have with skyrim is when they're randomly doing shit in the wilds.... IOW: actively AVOIDING engaging with the writing. Skyrim actually seems intelligent when you're just exploring and finding random scenes that might tell a story through the environment, like the retard who got crushed in his house because he built it below a tree hanging over a cliff. But then you go into a city and some scripted event or dialogue happens that reminds you how fucking stupid the game is. Just as a ready example, going into whiterun for the very first time, the blacksmith bitch will entrust you, a RANDOM fuckin NOBODY shes never met, to take her very valuable sword for the king regent or whoever the fuck it was and deliver it to him, with nary a thought given to that you might just decide to keep the sword for yourself, or pawn it off to the khajits for a quick buck for that sweet skooma fix. The game is full of situations like this that are just fucking braindead.

If someone actually attempted to fix stuff like this, and I dont even know that thats possible without building an entirely new game (*cough*enderal*cough*), i might actually develop some respect for modders, but the average redditard/modder actually thinks this is a "brilliant" game and "one of the greatest games of all time", which means you expect TES6 to be the same level of mediocrity. TES desperately needs an actual competitor to force them to step up their game. Ive always disputed the popular notion that its because bethesda is stupid. They aren't. They've just gotten lazy because literally no one else does or could make games anything like a TES title.