Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Surf Solar]

Is that skyrim nexus working for anyone? Just gives me a 502 bad gateway...

 

[DraQ]

To those espousing the benefits of Duel:

https://sites.google.com/site/grimyskyrim/mod-critiques/duel

I like it a bit more than Requiem but I think specific smaller mods do a better job than this big package.[/quote]
I'm only using it for the alleged AI buffs as everything else is rewritten by Requiem anyway.

I will need to do some more thorough testing, apparently.

 

[Suchy]

Codex hates Skyrim.

Codex has 30-page long thread about Skyrim mods.

 

[Gord]

To those espousing the benefits of Duel:

https://sites.google.com/site/grimyskyrim/mod-critiques/duel

Sounds like that guy is over Duel.
Never used it, so can't comment on it, though.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

To those espousing the benefits of Duel:

https://sites.google.com/site/grimyskyrim/mod-critiques/duel

Hmmm. Might have to rethink if I should keep using it, then. It's not like there's a dearth of options, anyway.

Sounds like that guy is over Duel.
Never used it, so can't comment on it, though.

Not really, he describes exactly why the changes are pointless or don't work as expected, instead of simply ranting like someone butthurt would.

 

[DraQ]

To those espousing the benefits of Duel:

https://sites.google.com/site/grimyskyrim/mod-critiques/duel

Hmmm. Might have to rethink if I should keep using it, then. It's not like there's a dearth of options, anyway.

Sounds like that guy is over Duel.
Never used it, so can't comment on it, though.

Not really, he describes exactly why the changes are pointless or don't work as expected, instead of simply ranting like someone butthurt would.

There is always Requiem.

For the record, guy's critique of Requiem is basically "Requiem is fucking awesome but the author cannot into cleaning his mess FFFFFUUU- Overall 3/5".

 

[Gord]

Ok, I correct myself, he's just very butthurt over bad/doubtful/messy modding.

Anyway, as I said I never used Duel, but for the people here that did (Clockwork Knight, DraQ) does it live up to its claims or is it more a case of self-deception after you read the complaints?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I dunno. The changes to shields and bashing can be felt, but I never used shields much so I can't tell how big of an impact it has on melee characters. As for the AI, I felt like enemies are smarter like the description says, but now that I've seen exactly what variables are changed, it could be a placebo effect that comes from me being more cautious and afraid of attacking head-on.

Then again, the review is for version 5, while the mod's been updated since then.

Duel - Combat Realism HARDCORE (v7)Welcome to the new combat experience!
DCRH (Duel - Combat Realism Hardcore) is the achievement of what I consider one of the most realistic combat experience from all DCR versions. BEWARE: intense, brutal and unforgiving combats await the greatest warriors who dare venture in the hostile land of Skyrim.

What have been done to Duel? Why going Hardcore?
This new version is specially designed for the ones who ask for a greater challenge. Mixing mods to create challenging combats is not needed anymore; DCRH should do the job by itself. Well, mixing them will work, but it's pure suicide

HARDCORE changelog:
- New scripted algorithm enhancing NPC A.I.;
- Critical hits on vital body parts may be lethal;
- Fast paced fights;
- Surviving is way more rewarding!

*Note: If you don't want to go Hardcore, keep on Duel v6.
**Note:If you don't like being staggered by archers; stick with Duel V5

There's also the fact I never used another AI enhancer, so pretty much anything is bound to feel better than Beth's default implementation. I settled for Duel because the description promises high compatibility and light script use, plus it seemed simpler than ACE's clusterfuck of changes; I also skipped SkyRe & Requiem because they are big overhauls, and I wanted to pick and choose changes. I feel like I should give Deadly combat a try next.

For the record, guy's critique of Requiem is basically "Requiem is fucking awesome but the author cannot into cleaning his mess FFFFFUUU- Overall 3/5".

Yeah, he does have a bit of a philosophical take on modding, analysing them as a teacher reads the class' dissertations ("Enhanced Enemy AI changes what it says it does and it's very thorough, but I hate it because it's not innovative and was probably easy to make, 2/5" ), but he gives detailed explanations of SPERG and DUEL's changes with tables and everything, so I have no reason to doubt him in those cases. I also just noticed he's the creator of GELO, which gives Diablo-like properties to the game's random loot. You know, in case you want to put some Diablo in your Skyrim so you can play Diablo while you play Skyrim.

 

[felipepepe]

I decided to dive into Skyrim again, will use Requiem, Deadly Dragons, Interesting NPCs & Better Quest objectives, besides Climates of Tamriel + Project ENB, Cloaks of Skyrim and Immersive Weapons & Armors. Any other recommendations?

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I decided to dive into Skyrim again, will use Requiem, Deadly Dragons, Interesting NPCs & Better Quest objectives, besides Climates of Tamriel + Project ENB, Cloaks of Skyrim and Immersive Weapons & Armors. Any other recommendations?

You may want to consider Skyrim Redone on Expert difficulty. It's not Beta anymore. It's just as difficult but more "flexible" in custom spell/eq mods compatibility etc. and not as limiting in terms of character development. You still won't get the best out of skills you haven't invested perks in, but in Requiem you simply can't use them at all. I generally appreciate such build's unique possibilities, but TES is more of a sandbox.

Also, Requiem is incompatible with Deadly Dragons.

 

[sea]

I've been using Skyrim Unleashed lately. It's certainly not bad - the changes to enemy health and behavior (like animals growling at you and not attacking unless you provoke them) are nice, along with tweaks to the loot tables and that sort of thing. But, I'm concerned about compatibility. For example, I'm kind of interested in checking out Morrowloot, but I don't think it's compatible with Skyrim Unleashed at all.

 

[DraQ]

I decided to dive into Skyrim again, will use Requiem, Deadly Dragons, Interesting NPCs & Better Quest objectives, besides Climates of Tamriel + Project ENB, Cloaks of Skyrim and Immersive Weapons & Armors. Any other recommendations?

You may want to consider Skyrim Redone on Expert difficulty. It's not Beta anymore. It's just as difficult but more "flexible" in custom spell/eq mods compatibility etc. and not as limiting in terms of character development. You still won't get the best out of skills you haven't invested perks in, but in Requiem you simply can't use them at all. I generally appreciate such build's unique possibilities, but TES is more of a sandbox.

Well, it's good that your build is what limits you in a game that's supposed to be an RPG, is it not?
Besides, Requiem gives you generous 3 perk points for free at the beginning of the game (the moment when you have your bindings cut), so it's not like it prevents you from being able to use the skills you want.

One thing I dislike about SkyRe is that it's pretty much a haphazard heap of random changes, like "oh, I think restoration should resemble D&D divine magic more", rather than clear and to the point improvements.
Requiem, OTOH, is as elegant, consistent and to the point as promise of imminent rape can ever be.

Anyway, I'm currently cleaning my Skyrim up a bit. Will report on performance of Requiem without Duel buried underneath.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Well, it's good that your build is what limits you in a game that's supposed to be an RPG, is it not?
Besides, Requiem gives you generous 3 perk points for free at the beginning of the game (the moment when you have your bindings cut), so it's not like it prevents you from being able to use the skills you want.

One thing I dislike about SkyRe is that it's pretty much a haphazard heap of random changes, like "oh, I think restoration should resemble D&D divine magic more", rather than clear and to the point improvements.
Requiem, OTOH, is as elegant, consistent and to the point as promise of imminent rape can ever be.

Anyway, I'm currently cleaning my Skyrim up a bit. Will report on performance of Requiem without Duel buried underneath.

It's just that, while great in its own good, Requiem is too detached from the point of TES for the dissonance not to be noticeable.

To a large degree, TES is about you being "from rags to riches", and by riches I mean a god-killing unstoppable machine swimming in gold and tons of lewt. While gameplay-wise that can be undesirable in how ridiculous it went overboard, making everything a bland steamroll (not to mention countless possible exploits), Requiem goes the totally opposite way - a very hermetic one; i.e. your character can only specialize in a very narrow niche that is mercilessly intolerant to any attempt at straying away from that given kind of playstyle and brutally punishes mistakes related to it. There is simply no room for fucking around in a game that's, in a way, all about it. The very fact that you have 100 or so weight capacity, and items have their weight further increased, and can't do basic shit without spending rare perks on it to even begin with is certainly not a bad thing in principle, but so fundamentally at odds with TES gameplay forte it is hard for me to accept it as *the* way to play this game.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great overhaul, but Dark Souls is not TES; it has completely different design principles and direction and SkyRe stays over stays more in touch with it whereas Requiem is much more it's own thing. I believe sea made the similar complaint.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Way to improve skyrim?

 

[DraQ]

It's just that, while great in its own good, Requiem is too detached from the point of TES for the dissonance not to be noticeable.

To a large degree, TES is about you being "from rags to riches"

This point is enhanced if you make it at least nominally challenging, is it not?
In earlier games you had to consciously restrict yourself to gain any satisfaction from getting awesome and rich. Requiem fixes that.

Requiem goes the totally opposite way - a very hermetic one; i.e. your character can only specialize in a very narrow niche that is mercilessly intolerant to any attempt at straying away from that given kind of playstyle and brutally punishes mistakes related to it.

From what I gathered from talking with the creator you can get about half of available perks in the end. That's hardly narrow. Plus it doesn't take away the freedom to mix and match skills inherent to TES.
What Requiem does is tying what you can do to what you are - your build. Not only in combat - for example it makes the "test" to get into the College of Winterhold no longer a joke as you may well be incapable of casting required spell with your build (and Beth did add workaround for the MQ, so there is no problem with that).

Do note that stuff like guild requirements was very present in pre-fail TES, "do everything, be everything with one character" is not the essence of TES, it's the essence of Oblivion which failed horribly at being TES game.

There is simply no room for fucking around in a game that's, in a way, all about it.

There is not only room, but compulsion to do so in Requiem. Different skills synergize well with each other, and you will often find yourself sitting behind a rock, arrows falling all around like rain and thinking how the fuck can you survive. That really motivates innovation and lateral thinking.

The very fact that you have 100 or so weight capacity, and items have their weight further increased, and can't do basic shit without spending rare perks on it to even begin with is certainly not a bad thing in principle, but so fundamentally at odds with TES gameplay forte it is hard for me to accept it as *the* way to play this game.

It improves the gameplay by making you less inclined to compulsively pick up everything you find, only valuable and useful things. You can alleviate the problem by buying a horse to carry both loot and your overencumbered ass, getting a house with storage space and having a follower (which is pretty much obligatory in Requiem as it gives you a chance to avoid gangbang and circumvent enemy's directional defences). If you still have problem with that you can install that bags and bandoliers mod for extra storage when equipped, or one of Requiem's own optional ESPs.

Requiem, Deadly Dragons

Requiem is incompatible with Deadly Dragons.

Also, false:

9) Known compatible mods

- Practically any graphic-enhancing mods
- Practically any mod that deals with pure animations
- Practically any Interface-enhancing mods (SkyUI, for example)

- Alternate Start - Live another Life
- ASIS (I suggest that you do flag Requiem NOT to be affected by it!)
- Auto Perk Stats Level
- Bandolier - Bags and Pouches
- Banks of Skyrim
- Belua Sanguinare
- Better Fast Travel - Carriages and Ships (before Requiem)
- Better Vampires (before Requiem)
- Brawl Bugs Patch (highly recommended)
- Bring out your dead
- Cerwiden Smart Follower
- Character Creation Overhaul
- Classic Classes and Birthsigns (Please use the compatibility patch here!)
- Cloaks of Skyrim
- Convenient Horses
- Deadly Dragons (after Requiem)
- Deployable Traps
- Dual Wield Parrying
- Economics of Skyrim
- Ely's Uncapper
- Ethereal Elven Overhaul (use the compatibility patch!)
- Extensible Follower Framework
- Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival
- Fires Hurt
- Get Snowy
- Guard Dialogue Overhaul (before Requiem, check it out!)
- Harvest Overhaul
- Horse commands
- Hypothermia
- Immersive armors (before Requiem)
- Imps more complex Needs (after Requiem)
- Interesting NPCs
- Ishs soul to perk
- Jaysus Swords (before Requiem)
- Khajiit Speak (after Requiem; check this out if your character is a Khajiit!!!)
- Locational Damage (might cause balancing issues)
- Lorecraft
- Mighty Dragons (after Requiem)
- Morrowloot
- Move It
- No Quest Items
- Proper Aiming (after Requiem)
- Radiance (before Requiem)
- Realistic Lighting without Post-Processing (I've been told that this is very immersive, it'll also make darkness darker, so all veteran dungeon crawlers might want to take a look here!)
- Realistic Needs and Diseases (after Requiem, use the compatibility patch! High recommended if you want to get more out of food!)
- Realistic Speed
- SKSE
- Skytest (Load it after Requiem, but consider that it will have a minor influence on some animal encounter difficulties!)
- Subliminal Traps
- Tales of lycantrophy
- The Choice is Yours
- Sneak Tools
- Ultimate Follower Overhaul (needs to be loaded after Requiem, but we're all not sure what side-effects this MAY cause)
- Unofficial Skyrim Patch (before Requiem, highly recommended)
- Unofficial Dawnguard Patch (before Requiem, highly recommended)
- Vilja in Skyrim
- Warzones
- Winter is Coming 2.0 (before Requiem)

 

[racofer]

Way to improve skyrim?

Edgy Bludgeony.

 

[Zewp]

He's not necessarily wrong, though.

 

[Gord]

But what about digital versions?

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

But what about digital versions?

The same thing. The contaminated hardware is already beyond repair.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What I need is a mod that freezes the gameworld during dialogue. Fucking annoying and only pleases the most obnoxious immershuntards.

It's just that, while great in its own good, Requiem is too detached from the point of TES for the dissonance not to be noticeable.

To a large degree, TES is about you being "from rags to riches´[...]

Which you'll probably get to in about two hours of playtime, if left unchecked. What do I do with the other 100? Get even richer and more godlike? This is why people call it a series of hiking simulators.

Way to improve skyrim?

We don't use those anymore, grandpa.

edit: hehe, sounds like the creator of DUEL abandoned modding because of that review (at least that's what the creator of Skyrim Unleashed says)


screenshot program





By the way, Requiem's next update features:

ogerboss 29 kudos 1042 posts
Version 1.7.0
New features
-Combat
-Jumping now costs stamina and blocks your stamina regeneration for a short duration. Wearing heavy armor while jumping significantly increases the effort.
-Normal attacks now cost stamina, scaling with the time required for the attack and your weapon skill.
-The poisons from frostbite spiders, chaurus and spriggan claws no longer have a threshold poison resistance negating the effect. Instead, the strength of the visual effect is decreased proportionally to your poison resistance. This also applies to diseases and disease resistance.
-The second rank of Agility is now known as "Dodge" and gives you the ability to actively dodge attacks (by pushing sprint while moving sideward) at the expense of stamina. This only works if you wear no piece of heavy armor.
-Magic
-"Blur" and "Shadow Shield" now have visual effects.
-XP rewarded for mind-affecting illusion spells are now scaled with the target level/10
-Compability with other mods
-The attack speed dummy can now be toggled off using the global variable "REQ_Compability_AttackSpeed" to achieve compability with other mods which add their own attack speed dummy.
Tweaks and Balancing
-Combat
-Combining the perks "Flurry" and "Agility" no longer decreases the attack time for daggers and swords below the minimal time required to execute a power attack.
-Large animals like bears and sabrecats no longer knock you down with each power attack, but only have a certain chance to do so.
-Power attacks and zooming for bows/crossbows now costs less stamina to compensate for the stamina cost of basic attacks and aiming.
-Magic
-"Dragon's Tongue" now has significantly shorter duration for the fire resistance effect.
-Empowering Illusion spells now has variable costs, ranging from 130\% for novice spells up to 170\% for master spells.
-Several illusion spells now have their restrictive effects for not empowering the spell correctly labelled as "(Not Empowered)" in the active effect menu.
-Economy
-Haggling is now more influenced by your skill. The initial prices for selling/buying are about the same as before, but selling now also scales with your skill. Furthermore, the haggling perk no longer provides static benefits, but scales with your skill as well.
Bugfixes
-Magic
-"Blur" and "Hibernation Spray" now have the correct spell level association and behave correctly when empowered.
-Bound arrows no longer have a weight.
-Defensive illusion spells now have the correct casting sounds.
-Invisibility effects now behave as expected after taking the corresponding perks.
-Mixing light and heavy armor no longer results in not correctly applied spellcasting penalties.
-"Shadow Sanctuary" is now correctly classified as an master spell.
-The perks "Metamagical Thesis" and "Metamagical Empowerment" no longer affect every magic effect, but only spells with a proper school association
-The reflective wards feature and its corresponding perk are disabled for now, because they seem to be broken.
-The spell "Transmute-Muscles" now behaves correctly when it is first cast normal and then dualcasted before it expired.
-"Veil of Silence" now correctly states in the description that it only affects illusion spells.
-Skills and Perks
-"Well Rested" now correctly grants a larger skill bonus than the "Rested" effect.
-Interface
-restored part of the alchemy/enchanting menu strings to fix "floating :"


posted @ 19:10, 4 Jul 2013 , stickied at 19:15, 4 Jul 2013

 

[escom]

Throwing weapons

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

 

[Ulminati]

So I'm in the middle of reinstalling this thing to tide me over until SR:R releases later this month.
What are the current "must have" mods to make this thing bearable? Graphics, ui, mechanics, content, anything really. I'm trawling the webz for "best of" compilations, but most of them seem to be at least 6 months out of date.

Digging through the last 10 pages or so of this thread as well. But if someone has a nice handy list to copypasta, it'd save me a bunch of effort

 

[DraQ]

So I'm in the middle of reinstalling this thing to tide me over until SR:R releases later this month.
What are the current "must have" mods to make this thing bearable? Graphics, ui, mechanics, content, anything really. I'm trawling the webz for "best of" compilations, but most of them seem to be at least 6 months out of date.

Digging through the last 10 pages or so of this thread as well. But if someone has a nice handy list to copypasta, it'd save me a bunch of effort

For starters:

Basic:

Official and unofficial patches,
SKSE if other mods demand it.

Graphics:

Just hi-res texture packs should be sufficient. Skyrim is remarkably pretty for a game built in such archaic engine for such archaic hardware.

Mechanics:

Get Requiem. It's rather comprehensive hardcore mod, but it also adds stuff like high level spells and looting yielding enemies.

Content:

Morrowloot should help with handplaced items. Something like Heavy Armory should help with stuff like weapon type diversity.

UI:

Get SkyUI for usable GUI and Immersive HUD to disappear your spoiler compass.

 

[Ulminati]

Isn't the spoiler compass sort-of required though? I recall descriptions on where to go being way, way more vague than in Morrowind.

At the moment I'm looking at SkyUI and SKSE for the UI and dependencies.

For graphics I'm not sure which texture mod(s) to get. But these seem pretty neat.

Lighting overhaul changes the lighting so fires are no longer blazing beacons visible for miles. I remember that bugging me.
Immersive armors looks pretty neat as well. But I'm wondering if it'll make the game even easier if theirt stats are too good.

The Quality Map Overhaul looks pretty neat as well. As much as I would've preferred a proper hand-drawn map. If I'm stuck with a satellite image, I may as well upgrade the camera resolution on it.


I'm definitely getting Alternate Start. I can only suffer though the wagon ride intro so many times.



Not sure about balance/overhaul mods. I definitely want it to be a bit harder than I remember it. I'm looking at Frostfall at the moment, and it seems like a neat start.

Civil War Overhaul and Dragon Combat Overhaul both look really interesting. But I'm worried about these "overhaul" mods clashing and breaking the game in interesting ways. I'm also trying to figure out what exactly requiem does. The nexus site description was pretty vague.

I'll keep updating this post as I rummage through the various mods. Hopefully people cna tell me which things to add/remove from the list an dit'll end up being useful to the next person who comes into this thread looking for a comprehensive "what to get" list.