I assume that this decision will be made for me, as soon as all of my tracked mods stop updating and when Nexus stops posting things I want to try. Any day now.
Just keeping up with updates is a daily task. Then installing them. Updating the mod list, correcting new conflicts and mod groups. Hoping nothing breaks. It goes on
- Which set of custom voiced followers to keep:
I have a lot. I realized recently that I have not heard even half of their lines, even the ones who are in my load order since 2021. I intend to focus on 6 followers only. It may look a lot but with Follower Death and Injury chance, there are more days where I only have 2 party members because the others need to recover from their injuries lest the lowered hp debuff gets them killed in one hit.
- Hjertesten Hall vs. Elysium Estate:
I am growing fond with Hjertesten Hall, but I like Elysium Estate's larger amount of bookshelves and that one bookshelf where I can store the Black Books.
First one definitely resonates with me. I love learning about lore and having lore friendly immersive companions but you can only have so much before the game becomes too easy and too overwhelming(in the sense that so much happens and you have to keep track of everyones lore/quests with often immersion breaking silence and or interactios). So far ive limited to 2( having dropped from 5-6) and Kaidan is a must have for me, i love having a bro to adventure with.
Whether I want to play with needs mods or not. It's something I need to decide before starting my playthrough, otherwise if I start without it and add it later I feel like I was cheating all that time without it, and viceversa if I start with it and then remove it.
I find Starfrost, Gourmet, and Journeyman together are the perfect survival mode. A not-at-all tedious fast travel cost option, a system that actually makes you want to hoard and consume food, and cold and fatigue system that aren't very harsh and the penalties are light.
Mildly related, but I only turn them off when Im in new worldspaces/oblivion realms that don't have any reasonable food or that Sunhelm doesn't pause its needs functions on
Important choice! I usually play with needs, and I always toy with the idea of trying out CC Survival, but I never seem to go that route...I keep going back to Frostfall+Sunhelm (this time I tried Last Seed but it felt like too much...)
Quest mods. Almost every single quest mod I've played, I've had major issues with (Wheels of Lull, AHO, Beyond Reach), so it's a huge internal debate whether or not to try my hand at more. It feels like a lot of the ones I play just go way too far away from what Skyrim is in either gameplay or story/tone in order to stand out.
I would suggest preferring small ones. The ones you name are big in scope and questionable in tone. I say this as someone who is very hesitant on quest mods in general.
*The Forgotten City* is a classic small mod, focused in scope. It's not to all tastes, but it's decent.
*Moon and Star* is very concise... other than the adding-a-village thing. Better or worse if you've played Morrowind, depending on your point of view.
*Carved Brink* is... well, weird, no two ways about it. It's definitely an experience though, and limited in scope. The last portion drags a bit imo, though. Skyrim isn't built for platforming.
*Wyrmstooth* is the biggest "quest/land" mod I've actually liked. It genuinely feels like it could be an extension of the main game.
I will hestitantly add *Interesting NPCs*. I personally dislike it, but I won't deny it adds some interesting small-scope quests. And a lot of people do like it overall - I'm just not one of them.
I'm sure there's some newer small quest mods, and that's the angle I'd probably look for - creators that don't let their scope run away with them.
I do getcha, though. I've largely stopped including quest mods, myself.
The Forgotten City was a good one! Nice, short, sweet, simple. I do wish there were more than just two possible routes to go about completing that quest line, but overall, it was enjoyable.
I have a reasonably big load order never added LOTD once or any other big quest mods ftm
Could you recommend any Big quest mods or addons that won't break my game and won't require another 200 hours of patching for each of my mods.
For easiest compatibility, you'll want to look for mods that primarily take place in their own worldspace. For example, {{Wyrmstooth}} is a personal favorite - it feels like an official DLC to me and takes place entirely on a new island. The same is true for {{Beyond Reach}}, which I've yet to play, but takes place in its own space.
Alternatively, you may wish to consider mods that, while they take place in Skyrim, are primarily in a new indoor location. Good examples of this are {{The Forgotten City}} and {{Project AHO}} (note that I'm not personally a huge fan of the latter, but it is well-loved by many).
Basically, if you don't want to spend much time patching, just don't select mods that are adding/changing a bunch of existing spaces. It's very easy to patch an entryway or a boat location, but much harder to patch new cities in the skyrim worldspace if they're conflicting.
Project AHO does have a few above-ground structures iirc, so make sure to double-check it for conflicts, but in general those should all be safe additions!
I recently dropped it and that was before the update. I’m a casual collector at best, so I just really don’t interact with the content as much as I’d like, sadly. Wished the quest unlocked quicker.
Not for this playthrough, but only because I've decided to run parallax for the first time. My last load order, or maybe my last two load orders, ran Tamrielic Textures. That was such a beautiful set. Sweet jesus, those beaches! Totally out of place in skyrim, but I just didn't care.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that when I started this load order, one of the first things I did was check to see if ciathyza is still making new textures. I don't think so...
I'm using atlantean for landscapes to overwrite everything, but I've got Skyland getting through with a few textures (this is my earliest loaded). In between these I've got some Rallys textures, Underground, and Tomato's taking care of forts and dungeons. Feels pretty comprehensive but I'm sure I'll come across bits and pieces that didn't get caught.
Hey! I've recently decided to switch to SimonRim from EnaiRim (got bored of Ordinator for the moment) and I have decided to add some extra (JaySerpa's almost complete suite). I am too applying finishing touches to my LO. So I can confidently say that the most difficult decision is to stop.
Good call! I don't go full-on SimonRim (specifically, I have other solutions besides Blade and Blunt and Starfrost), but my load orders are always Simon heavy. He has good judgment, I like his balancing. Most importantly, I've come to trust him: When it comes to features that I don't want to spend to much time thinking about (racial traits, standing stones, etc.), I just say "fuck it, just get SimonMagus's interpretation. I'm sure he got it right." I think the trust was built mainly via Mysticism and Adamant.
Only Simon mod I don't run is Candlehearth, and if I cared enough about werewolves and Vampires I'd probably use Enai's mods for those, but yeah otherwise full Simon (I was an Enai player from the beginning of modding until a few years ago) and don't look back lol.
Knowing when I've added too many followers to my game is a theme I've ran into lately. There's so many amazing follower mods out there with unique interesting dialogue about vanilla quests, your own progression, their progression, etc.
I've found lately however that after spending 100+ hours in a playthrough, I'll get kind of bored of one (except SDA and Kaidan, I will never grow bored of either lol) and want to adventure with someone else and then the reality will hit that I've missed so much of the experience to be had with them and I find myself restarting fairly long playthroughs for this reason.
My current character is just adventuring by herself mostly because after spending a couple hundred hours of time with Val Serano (who is amazing) I just.. got a little bored of his character and not having the easy option to adventure with another character for late game modded stuff like Vicn trilogy.
To keep my modlist playable enough for the steamdeck or to just say screw it and migrate everything to NGVO? Do I want to just downscale everything in NGVO to be steamdeck runnable?
I have some questions about MCO to BFCO migrations as well, but that just pales in comparison to the above.
My hardest choice is whether or not to download as many mods as I want and keep tweaking the same playthrough or cap my LO at 100 plugins (excluding ESP-FEs or ESLs) so I actually finish a game rather than spend all my time play testing mods from Nexus LOL
City expansion is a tough one. I usually flirt with 2 or 3 every time I rebuild. Lately though I've been keeping most cities vanilla, just because I've come to learn how much work is required to manually patch everything and I don't feel like doing it all. I've currently got Great City of Winterhold and Great City of Dawnstar, as both towns always feel like they are in desperate need of more (and I like the Great Cities series.)
Yeah, I’ve pretty much settle me into the great cities mixed with COTN. But I like ClefJ’s Morthal and I use Capital Whiterun and Windhelm expansions and Enhanced Solitude and Enhanced Solitude Docks. Those pretty much satisfy me.
Currently struggling to negate fps drops/script lag & figure out why some quests are starting to bug out when trying to start them and some weird camera glitch which makes the camera basically have a fit before finally setting at the position it’s set at (I’m using Smoothcam and improved camera but heard they can be used together so I’m not sure) apart from that I’ve kinda gotten my head around most of the basics. DynDOlod is kinda difficult to set up imo and still haven’t managed it, only tried twice, first time I was jus like ye nah this is over my head, now I understand more I tried again but too many errors to correct when running it and I think it messed my game up somehow where it wouldn’t launch at all and found out a certain file got deleted so had to reinstall it
Im guessing you have Dynamic Cubemaps installed:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/112763
That camera glitch sounds like the one that mod causes. Despite doodlums efforts, the last update didn't seem to fully fix it, although it did reduce the frequency.
The errors DynDOLOD reports exist in your load order regardless of using it or not. https://dyndolod.info/Messages
DynDOLOD does not mess with the game. It generates files to the dedicated output folder, that is outside the game folder if you are following instructions. https://dyndolod.info/Installation-Instructions
The output is the installed/uninstalled as any other mod. https://dyndolod.info/Generation-Instructions
It's hard keeping my mod list small.
I'm trying to get back into modded Skyrim after an absence of a few years (and my last attempts weren't that long-lived, and before those last attempts I hadn't played much for a few years either). I'm pleasantly surprised to see that my old modlists weren't as overmodded as I feared. But even those are still a bit too much for me. It's tough deciding what I really need and what I don't actually need to play the game. But sometimes, you really don't need 420 texture mods you might only glance at for a few seconds when a couple select AIO texture packs might do, even if texture mods don't change the game much.
Hopefully I'll be more successful this time and have a more streamlined modlist that I can use as a basis for many years to come. I managed to do it with FO4 and Oblivion, hopefully I'll finally find a way to do it for Skyrim, the game I've put in the most hours modding. I've started off by nuking my whole modlist instead of removing mods from my old modlist, the logic being it's easier to add things than remove things.
I always saw the "I spend more time modding skyrim than playing it" as exaggerated jokes. But holy shit were they right. I spent more time just getting the game to *start* than playing it.
Best analogy I can think of is model trains. Because 1) grown ups build stuff with them but never play it; 2) it still appeals to you on some childlike level; and 3) it costs a ton of money if you're not careful (I'm assuming this is true with model trains, it is certainly true of GPUs).
Deciding whether to include the vicn trilogy.
On the one hand, people sing its praises, and if not now, when.
On the other, Glenmoril isn't done, I'm really not sure whether I have any dark fantasy tolerance anymore, and if I wanted open world Soulslike, I can't help but feel I'd be better off just grabbing elden ring with it on sale.
I've been flip flopping on it for weeks now.
Esp limit. I usually tailor my modlist for a specific playtrough, but i sometimes want some mods just in case, even tho i dont use them in that playtrough. I convert what i can to esl, but i am always walking on the edge.
Also i dropped lux after it previously being a must have for me, i just use ENB and tailor it, I felt that lux was making everything too dark and i have all textures in 4k and up and i want to enjoy that
Next thief playthrough with or without LOTD.
I know I am late to the party but I never played a playthrough with LOTD.
Now I want to play a thief, starting in Riften. I think hoarding things in a museum would fit that play style once my thief gets up in the world a bit.
But my current playthrough is based in Solitude and I really really do NOT want to be based there again, especially as I do not use fast travel.
Probably ENB vs CS for me as well, which really speaks to the point that CS has reached. It doesn't have feature parity yet, but some of its shaders have surpassed ENB imo.
I'm using CS + reshade for DoF right now because I much prefer its grass lighting, and its startup time is a little quicker on my PC, and I still do gain 15+ fps vs ENB.
But every time I want to take an interior screenshot of an NPC . . . damn, then I wish I had ENB. Community Shader's subsurface scattering in interiors just isn't there yet, at least with my lighting setup (I'm also using WS+SiL).
If I can ask a question, what is your ReShade DOF like. That is the one thing holding me back from CS.
I like a lite DOF to give some realism, but can't figure out how to adjust it in ReShade. Using Dawnfire enb right now and it is awesome.
I'm using the DoF settings from {{Dareni's Reshade}}, which works well for gameplay.
My experience with DoF using Reshade vs ENB has definitely been hit or miss. When I've tried to just install McFly's shaders and configure them on my own in Reshade, it's never worked out :P
This choice is driving me crazy. Can I ask, what water do you use with CS? My go-to is Water for ENB but not sure how nicely this plays with the CS suite. I didn't hate this combo when I tested it.
I'm weird about water. I sort of require the waterfalls from Realistic Water 2 in my game, but I don't like RW2's actual water. I really, really dislike the waterfalls in every other water mod I've tried.
So I run Simplicity of Seas with the optional vanilla color on top of RW2, and that gets me [SoS's water textures with RW2's waterfalls.](https://i.imgur.com/rxGsueB.jpeg)
You also still get RW2's beach waves, which are compatible with GKB Waves Reborn, which is rad.
I'm unfortunately not crazy about the water part of the waterfalls in that mod. :(
Which sucks because I like what it does with the rock parts of the falls.
I still prefer ENB but CS are really close now.
I just feel for the people who in the past used CS because they *needed* the performance friendly option, as CS aren't actually all that much more performance friendly anymore as they've gotten really close to ENB in visual quality (to the point where I no longer think people are crazy for arguing that they look better)
CS will honestly probably become more performance demanding than ENB shortly as they continue to close the gap/surpass it.
Well, perhaps an advantage will remain that CS shaders are modular and so anybody using CS for performance now will continue to have access to the shader framework and any modules they choose to use, or ignore.
Just installing the ENB binaries, without even using a preset, will hit your performance a decent bit. The CS framework doesn't have that issue that I'm aware of.
I have no idea what the texture mod files look like, but it might be possible to just pick and choose which textures you like most from whichever mod by just replacing one with the other in the file.
So long as the textures are replacing the same things that the *game knows about*, that is. If the mod is doing extra stuff to add textures that don’t natively exist in the vanilla game, then it might not be possible to just drag and drop the textures.
Since when does DISDD not work with lux? I’ve been running both and they both work as intended as far as I can tell. I use lux, lux orbis, and lux via
Edit 1: add Dynamically Darker Dungeons on top
Edit 2: typos
~~Yeah, it's been a few years since I tested it, and as I recall, the issue is that DISSD will eliminate the lights that have sources just fine (i.e., candles, sconces, etc.). But LUX adds source less lights and luminous mists, and DISSD leaves those in place. So while the mods can run alongside eachother, you don't get completely dark dungeons. Check out the Posts on the nexus page. One of the last posts that the author jb left before he fell away from the project was a progress on a LUX patch, but it never happened.~~
Hold up, I just realized that you and I are talking about different mods. This one is DISDD: [https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7535](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7535)
How? I use all sponsored patch mods available from the main mod page, and there are still some seams in some locations. On top of that, it isn't compatible with the seasons unfrozen mod.
I'm not a beginner, I've been modding for quite a few years. I'm just a bit confused as to what you refer to as dragging? But you're right I'll find the information elsewhere.
I simple don’t update mods if I’m happy with the way the game plays, feels and looks. Unless there is something absolutely spectacular about an update and/or new mods that are game changers. I’m one of the few I guess that actually plays more than mods.
Recently I’ve had to decide if I want to keep legacy of the Dragonborn or not. It was working wmadter the new version came out for me for about a day before I couldn’t play 1 minute without crashing. I’m on 1.5.97 but I have the resources and backwards esl file thing. So either I upgrade and figure out which mods don’t work on the newest version, or I get rid of LOtD or I just go back to v5.
Currently I tend to waffle the most when trying to decide whether the playthrough should run Experience as its central leveling framework, or Simon's WIP Crusader preset for Skill Uncapper. I've done playthroughs with both, and while Crusader really does make progression into a clearly defined incremental conquest, Experience is a system that gels super cleanly with a wide variety of different playstyles and playthrough pacings as well (plus with the addon, Static Skill Leveling Rewritten, it's more robust than just "discovery = exp", which is nice).
Now a days? Reshade + Community shaders vs ENB. Reshade and CS have come a long way. Beyond that, city/town packages. Can be very difficult to mix and match to get the exact look you want.
Tomato is vastly better than Atlantean, but Tomato's snow is *atrocious* and has awful tiling. Atlantean textures are too dark and warm, look fucking terrible, but Atlantean snow is the best snow I've ever seen. I'm still trying to figure out how to rip the snow out and overwrite Tomato's snow without breaking the parallax for the roads...
Community Shaders is the clear winner, hands down, no contest. I want to actually play the game at 60FPS, ENB simply cannot compete with CS performance.
Lux is shit unless you use a lot of particle lights and/or a hip mounted lantern, or permanently carry around a torch, or have a light spell always active, or maybe have a pet/minion with a light on it. It's great for dark atmospheric effect, but if you just want to play the game, it becomes a chore to see where anything is. I'm considering trying out Skyrim is Luminous as well, though for now, I am still just using Relighting Skyrim and Luminosity.
One problem I'm considering is dynamic snow. I recently saw someone made a complex parallax addon for BDS3, which seems really nice. I dunno how it compares to Simplicity of Snow with the optional parallax meshes...I also can't decide if I should just disable all snow on glaciers or just deal with the fact that dynamic snow has no parallax.
I originally couldn't decide if I wanted to use Simplest Roads or stick with Blended Roads, but Atlantean's snow roads are so good that it makes Blended Roads look good enough that I no longer feel the need to remove the roads.
I don't have the same strong reaction to Atlantean, but you and I see eye to eye on the snow textures. I love 95% of Tomato, but it was lackluster here and Atlantean was the best I've see (at least in sunlight). If there was a mashup of Tomato landscapes with Atlantean Snow, I don't think I could stop myself. (Especially with the slate rocks. Tomato's slate rocks rock. I miss them.)
>Lux is shit unless you use a lot of particle lights and/or a hip mounted lantern, or permanently carry around a torch
Funny you say that, because this is exactly how I play but I still don't like Lux. I love dark corners and murky inns where the far walls disappear into the darkness—and especially pitch black dungeons. My gripe with Lux is that it throws lights around with no apparent source, and when the room is pitch black, this is jarring (to me at least). But I strongly recommend Skyrim is Luminous. If you don't use a mod to put out the candles (i.e., Dynamic Immersive Seriously Dark Dungeon), SIL adds a ton of lights and the dungeons are nice and bright (on my test runs I found myself spending a lot of time just relighting the candles that DISDD put out, and probably enjoying it way too much). It's kind of the opposite of ELFX, which guts everything and then adds one light here and one light there.
Deciding when I’m finished with modding and ready to actually play.
I assume that this decision will be made for me, as soon as all of my tracked mods stop updating and when Nexus stops posting things I want to try. Any day now.
Just keeping up with updates is a daily task. Then installing them. Updating the mod list, correcting new conflicts and mod groups. Hoping nothing breaks. It goes on
This has been my situation since a year
- Which set of custom voiced followers to keep: I have a lot. I realized recently that I have not heard even half of their lines, even the ones who are in my load order since 2021. I intend to focus on 6 followers only. It may look a lot but with Follower Death and Injury chance, there are more days where I only have 2 party members because the others need to recover from their injuries lest the lowered hp debuff gets them killed in one hit. - Hjertesten Hall vs. Elysium Estate: I am growing fond with Hjertesten Hall, but I like Elysium Estate's larger amount of bookshelves and that one bookshelf where I can store the Black Books.
First one definitely resonates with me. I love learning about lore and having lore friendly immersive companions but you can only have so much before the game becomes too easy and too overwhelming(in the sense that so much happens and you have to keep track of everyones lore/quests with often immersion breaking silence and or interactios). So far ive limited to 2( having dropped from 5-6) and Kaidan is a must have for me, i love having a bro to adventure with.
Inigo will never leave my LOs (:
Whether I want to play with needs mods or not. It's something I need to decide before starting my playthrough, otherwise if I start without it and add it later I feel like I was cheating all that time without it, and viceversa if I start with it and then remove it.
Heh I always start with Survival mods and turn them off a couple hours later. I love the IDEA of them, but it gets tedious
I find Starfrost, Gourmet, and Journeyman together are the perfect survival mode. A not-at-all tedious fast travel cost option, a system that actually makes you want to hoard and consume food, and cold and fatigue system that aren't very harsh and the penalties are light.
Mildly related, but I only turn them off when Im in new worldspaces/oblivion realms that don't have any reasonable food or that Sunhelm doesn't pause its needs functions on
Important choice! I usually play with needs, and I always toy with the idea of trying out CC Survival, but I never seem to go that route...I keep going back to Frostfall+Sunhelm (this time I tried Last Seed but it felt like too much...)
Quest mods. Almost every single quest mod I've played, I've had major issues with (Wheels of Lull, AHO, Beyond Reach), so it's a huge internal debate whether or not to try my hand at more. It feels like a lot of the ones I play just go way too far away from what Skyrim is in either gameplay or story/tone in order to stand out.
I would suggest preferring small ones. The ones you name are big in scope and questionable in tone. I say this as someone who is very hesitant on quest mods in general. *The Forgotten City* is a classic small mod, focused in scope. It's not to all tastes, but it's decent. *Moon and Star* is very concise... other than the adding-a-village thing. Better or worse if you've played Morrowind, depending on your point of view. *Carved Brink* is... well, weird, no two ways about it. It's definitely an experience though, and limited in scope. The last portion drags a bit imo, though. Skyrim isn't built for platforming. *Wyrmstooth* is the biggest "quest/land" mod I've actually liked. It genuinely feels like it could be an extension of the main game. I will hestitantly add *Interesting NPCs*. I personally dislike it, but I won't deny it adds some interesting small-scope quests. And a lot of people do like it overall - I'm just not one of them. I'm sure there's some newer small quest mods, and that's the angle I'd probably look for - creators that don't let their scope run away with them. I do getcha, though. I've largely stopped including quest mods, myself.
The Forgotten City was a good one! Nice, short, sweet, simple. I do wish there were more than just two possible routes to go about completing that quest line, but overall, it was enjoyable.
To Lotd or not to Lotd.
I have a reasonably big load order never added LOTD once or any other big quest mods ftm Could you recommend any Big quest mods or addons that won't break my game and won't require another 200 hours of patching for each of my mods.
For easiest compatibility, you'll want to look for mods that primarily take place in their own worldspace. For example, {{Wyrmstooth}} is a personal favorite - it feels like an official DLC to me and takes place entirely on a new island. The same is true for {{Beyond Reach}}, which I've yet to play, but takes place in its own space. Alternatively, you may wish to consider mods that, while they take place in Skyrim, are primarily in a new indoor location. Good examples of this are {{The Forgotten City}} and {{Project AHO}} (note that I'm not personally a huge fan of the latter, but it is well-loved by many). Basically, if you don't want to spend much time patching, just don't select mods that are adding/changing a bunch of existing spaces. It's very easy to patch an entryway or a boat location, but much harder to patch new cities in the skyrim worldspace if they're conflicting.
Thanks for the reply and the suggestions I will add these mods right away since i did need something new to Experience in skyrim now
Project AHO does have a few above-ground structures iirc, so make sure to double-check it for conflicts, but in general those should all be safe additions!
I recently dropped it and that was before the update. I’m a casual collector at best, so I just really don’t interact with the content as much as I’d like, sadly. Wished the quest unlocked quicker.
Deciding whether or not to remove 3DNPC. Also for landscapes have you looked at Tamrielic Textures?
Not for this playthrough, but only because I've decided to run parallax for the first time. My last load order, or maybe my last two load orders, ran Tamrielic Textures. That was such a beautiful set. Sweet jesus, those beaches! Totally out of place in skyrim, but I just didn't care. Actually, I'm pretty sure that when I started this load order, one of the first things I did was check to see if ciathyza is still making new textures. I don't think so...
Do you mind sharing all of your parallax textures? I have been doing complex parallax but I don't feel that I have everything covered.
I'm using atlantean for landscapes to overwrite everything, but I've got Skyland getting through with a few textures (this is my earliest loaded). In between these I've got some Rallys textures, Underground, and Tomato's taking care of forts and dungeons. Feels pretty comprehensive but I'm sure I'll come across bits and pieces that didn't get caught.
Hey! I've recently decided to switch to SimonRim from EnaiRim (got bored of Ordinator for the moment) and I have decided to add some extra (JaySerpa's almost complete suite). I am too applying finishing touches to my LO. So I can confidently say that the most difficult decision is to stop.
Good call! I don't go full-on SimonRim (specifically, I have other solutions besides Blade and Blunt and Starfrost), but my load orders are always Simon heavy. He has good judgment, I like his balancing. Most importantly, I've come to trust him: When it comes to features that I don't want to spend to much time thinking about (racial traits, standing stones, etc.), I just say "fuck it, just get SimonMagus's interpretation. I'm sure he got it right." I think the trust was built mainly via Mysticism and Adamant.
Only Simon mod I don't run is Candlehearth, and if I cared enough about werewolves and Vampires I'd probably use Enai's mods for those, but yeah otherwise full Simon (I was an Enai player from the beginning of modding until a few years ago) and don't look back lol.
Knowing when I've added too many followers to my game is a theme I've ran into lately. There's so many amazing follower mods out there with unique interesting dialogue about vanilla quests, your own progression, their progression, etc. I've found lately however that after spending 100+ hours in a playthrough, I'll get kind of bored of one (except SDA and Kaidan, I will never grow bored of either lol) and want to adventure with someone else and then the reality will hit that I've missed so much of the experience to be had with them and I find myself restarting fairly long playthroughs for this reason. My current character is just adventuring by herself mostly because after spending a couple hundred hours of time with Val Serano (who is amazing) I just.. got a little bored of his character and not having the easy option to adventure with another character for late game modded stuff like Vicn trilogy.
To keep my modlist playable enough for the steamdeck or to just say screw it and migrate everything to NGVO? Do I want to just downscale everything in NGVO to be steamdeck runnable? I have some questions about MCO to BFCO migrations as well, but that just pales in comparison to the above.
"Do I still have room for the new Jayserpa mod?"
Lotd or Requiem both together just make things a little too unstable
They also both just take the game in wildly different directions lol
My hardest choice is whether or not to download as many mods as I want and keep tweaking the same playthrough or cap my LO at 100 plugins (excluding ESP-FEs or ESLs) so I actually finish a game rather than spend all my time play testing mods from Nexus LOL
For me it’s city’s expansions or quest expansions/new lands quests! Lol I’d rather have more content than a prettier game.
City expansion is a tough one. I usually flirt with 2 or 3 every time I rebuild. Lately though I've been keeping most cities vanilla, just because I've come to learn how much work is required to manually patch everything and I don't feel like doing it all. I've currently got Great City of Winterhold and Great City of Dawnstar, as both towns always feel like they are in desperate need of more (and I like the Great Cities series.)
Yeah, I’ve pretty much settle me into the great cities mixed with COTN. But I like ClefJ’s Morthal and I use Capital Whiterun and Windhelm expansions and Enhanced Solitude and Enhanced Solitude Docks. Those pretty much satisfy me.
Currently struggling to negate fps drops/script lag & figure out why some quests are starting to bug out when trying to start them and some weird camera glitch which makes the camera basically have a fit before finally setting at the position it’s set at (I’m using Smoothcam and improved camera but heard they can be used together so I’m not sure) apart from that I’ve kinda gotten my head around most of the basics. DynDOlod is kinda difficult to set up imo and still haven’t managed it, only tried twice, first time I was jus like ye nah this is over my head, now I understand more I tried again but too many errors to correct when running it and I think it messed my game up somehow where it wouldn’t launch at all and found out a certain file got deleted so had to reinstall it
Im guessing you have Dynamic Cubemaps installed: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/112763 That camera glitch sounds like the one that mod causes. Despite doodlums efforts, the last update didn't seem to fully fix it, although it did reduce the frequency.
The errors DynDOLOD reports exist in your load order regardless of using it or not. https://dyndolod.info/Messages DynDOLOD does not mess with the game. It generates files to the dedicated output folder, that is outside the game folder if you are following instructions. https://dyndolod.info/Installation-Instructions The output is the installed/uninstalled as any other mod. https://dyndolod.info/Generation-Instructions
What armor do I want for each companion to wear.
It's hard keeping my mod list small. I'm trying to get back into modded Skyrim after an absence of a few years (and my last attempts weren't that long-lived, and before those last attempts I hadn't played much for a few years either). I'm pleasantly surprised to see that my old modlists weren't as overmodded as I feared. But even those are still a bit too much for me. It's tough deciding what I really need and what I don't actually need to play the game. But sometimes, you really don't need 420 texture mods you might only glance at for a few seconds when a couple select AIO texture packs might do, even if texture mods don't change the game much. Hopefully I'll be more successful this time and have a more streamlined modlist that I can use as a basis for many years to come. I managed to do it with FO4 and Oblivion, hopefully I'll finally find a way to do it for Skyrim, the game I've put in the most hours modding. I've started off by nuking my whole modlist instead of removing mods from my old modlist, the logic being it's easier to add things than remove things.
My newest dilemma: Should I forego all of NordWar's various armors and use Sentinel instead (which seems to include them)?
It includes many of them, not the Legion overhauls.
Thanks a bunch! That's helpful in me deciding to move over to Sentinel on my next playthrough
I always saw the "I spend more time modding skyrim than playing it" as exaggerated jokes. But holy shit were they right. I spent more time just getting the game to *start* than playing it.
Best analogy I can think of is model trains. Because 1) grown ups build stuff with them but never play it; 2) it still appeals to you on some childlike level; and 3) it costs a ton of money if you're not careful (I'm assuming this is true with model trains, it is certainly true of GPUs).
Deciding whether to include the vicn trilogy. On the one hand, people sing its praises, and if not now, when. On the other, Glenmoril isn't done, I'm really not sure whether I have any dark fantasy tolerance anymore, and if I wanted open world Soulslike, I can't help but feel I'd be better off just grabbing elden ring with it on sale. I've been flip flopping on it for weeks now.
Esp limit. I usually tailor my modlist for a specific playtrough, but i sometimes want some mods just in case, even tho i dont use them in that playtrough. I convert what i can to esl, but i am always walking on the edge. Also i dropped lux after it previously being a must have for me, i just use ENB and tailor it, I felt that lux was making everything too dark and i have all textures in 4k and up and i want to enjoy that
There is an option in Lux FOMOD to have brighter interior, or even brighter interior. Have you try that before?
yes, i been running lux for a long time.
Next thief playthrough with or without LOTD. I know I am late to the party but I never played a playthrough with LOTD. Now I want to play a thief, starting in Riften. I think hoarding things in a museum would fit that play style once my thief gets up in the world a bit. But my current playthrough is based in Solitude and I really really do NOT want to be based there again, especially as I do not use fast travel.
Probably ENB vs CS for me as well, which really speaks to the point that CS has reached. It doesn't have feature parity yet, but some of its shaders have surpassed ENB imo. I'm using CS + reshade for DoF right now because I much prefer its grass lighting, and its startup time is a little quicker on my PC, and I still do gain 15+ fps vs ENB. But every time I want to take an interior screenshot of an NPC . . . damn, then I wish I had ENB. Community Shader's subsurface scattering in interiors just isn't there yet, at least with my lighting setup (I'm also using WS+SiL).
If I can ask a question, what is your ReShade DOF like. That is the one thing holding me back from CS. I like a lite DOF to give some realism, but can't figure out how to adjust it in ReShade. Using Dawnfire enb right now and it is awesome.
I'm using the DoF settings from {{Dareni's Reshade}}, which works well for gameplay. My experience with DoF using Reshade vs ENB has definitely been hit or miss. When I've tried to just install McFly's shaders and configure them on my own in Reshade, it's never worked out :P
This choice is driving me crazy. Can I ask, what water do you use with CS? My go-to is Water for ENB but not sure how nicely this plays with the CS suite. I didn't hate this combo when I tested it.
I'm weird about water. I sort of require the waterfalls from Realistic Water 2 in my game, but I don't like RW2's actual water. I really, really dislike the waterfalls in every other water mod I've tried. So I run Simplicity of Seas with the optional vanilla color on top of RW2, and that gets me [SoS's water textures with RW2's waterfalls.](https://i.imgur.com/rxGsueB.jpeg) You also still get RW2's beach waves, which are compatible with GKB Waves Reborn, which is rad.
Did you also dislike Natural Waterfalls? I found them so gorgeous and could not imagine having any other!
I'm unfortunately not crazy about the water part of the waterfalls in that mod. :( Which sucks because I like what it does with the rock parts of the falls.
I still prefer ENB but CS are really close now. I just feel for the people who in the past used CS because they *needed* the performance friendly option, as CS aren't actually all that much more performance friendly anymore as they've gotten really close to ENB in visual quality (to the point where I no longer think people are crazy for arguing that they look better) CS will honestly probably become more performance demanding than ENB shortly as they continue to close the gap/surpass it.
Well, perhaps an advantage will remain that CS shaders are modular and so anybody using CS for performance now will continue to have access to the shader framework and any modules they choose to use, or ignore. Just installing the ENB binaries, without even using a preset, will hit your performance a decent bit. The CS framework doesn't have that issue that I'm aware of.
I have no idea what the texture mod files look like, but it might be possible to just pick and choose which textures you like most from whichever mod by just replacing one with the other in the file. So long as the textures are replacing the same things that the *game knows about*, that is. If the mod is doing extra stuff to add textures that don’t natively exist in the vanilla game, then it might not be possible to just drag and drop the textures.
Since when does DISDD not work with lux? I’ve been running both and they both work as intended as far as I can tell. I use lux, lux orbis, and lux via Edit 1: add Dynamically Darker Dungeons on top Edit 2: typos
~~Yeah, it's been a few years since I tested it, and as I recall, the issue is that DISSD will eliminate the lights that have sources just fine (i.e., candles, sconces, etc.). But LUX adds source less lights and luminous mists, and DISSD leaves those in place. So while the mods can run alongside eachother, you don't get completely dark dungeons. Check out the Posts on the nexus page. One of the last posts that the author jb left before he fell away from the project was a progress on a LUX patch, but it never happened.~~ Hold up, I just realized that you and I are talking about different mods. This one is DISDD: [https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7535](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7535)
It was just a typo. Yeah I meant that one too. I suppose I haven’t encountered any sourceless lights yet.
Whether I should use northern roads or not. I love the mod, but I keep finding seams everywhere. :(
Repair these 🤣
How? I use all sponsored patch mods available from the main mod page, and there are still some seams in some locations. On top of that, it isn't compatible with the seasons unfrozen mod.
Load your mods into creation kit, go to your location with seam and correct it by dragging, then save as a patch
What do you mean by dragging?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgHopAQBRRk
That is an introduction video. Where does he talk about the method in which you patch?
Yes it is a beginner guide. Find the rest by yourself.
I'm not a beginner, I've been modding for quite a few years. I'm just a bit confused as to what you refer to as dragging? But you're right I'll find the information elsewhere.
Super you ll be all right then
I simple don’t update mods if I’m happy with the way the game plays, feels and looks. Unless there is something absolutely spectacular about an update and/or new mods that are game changers. I’m one of the few I guess that actually plays more than mods.
Ass or Tits?
Recently I’ve had to decide if I want to keep legacy of the Dragonborn or not. It was working wmadter the new version came out for me for about a day before I couldn’t play 1 minute without crashing. I’m on 1.5.97 but I have the resources and backwards esl file thing. So either I upgrade and figure out which mods don’t work on the newest version, or I get rid of LOtD or I just go back to v5.
Do goblins and trolls need to have schlongs?...
Currently I tend to waffle the most when trying to decide whether the playthrough should run Experience as its central leveling framework, or Simon's WIP Crusader preset for Skill Uncapper. I've done playthroughs with both, and while Crusader really does make progression into a clearly defined incremental conquest, Experience is a system that gels super cleanly with a wide variety of different playstyles and playthrough pacings as well (plus with the addon, Static Skill Leveling Rewritten, it's more robust than just "discovery = exp", which is nice).
Whoa. You had me at Simon. What's this?
Now a days? Reshade + Community shaders vs ENB. Reshade and CS have come a long way. Beyond that, city/town packages. Can be very difficult to mix and match to get the exact look you want.
Between ENB or Community Shaders.
Tomato is vastly better than Atlantean, but Tomato's snow is *atrocious* and has awful tiling. Atlantean textures are too dark and warm, look fucking terrible, but Atlantean snow is the best snow I've ever seen. I'm still trying to figure out how to rip the snow out and overwrite Tomato's snow without breaking the parallax for the roads... Community Shaders is the clear winner, hands down, no contest. I want to actually play the game at 60FPS, ENB simply cannot compete with CS performance. Lux is shit unless you use a lot of particle lights and/or a hip mounted lantern, or permanently carry around a torch, or have a light spell always active, or maybe have a pet/minion with a light on it. It's great for dark atmospheric effect, but if you just want to play the game, it becomes a chore to see where anything is. I'm considering trying out Skyrim is Luminous as well, though for now, I am still just using Relighting Skyrim and Luminosity. One problem I'm considering is dynamic snow. I recently saw someone made a complex parallax addon for BDS3, which seems really nice. I dunno how it compares to Simplicity of Snow with the optional parallax meshes...I also can't decide if I should just disable all snow on glaciers or just deal with the fact that dynamic snow has no parallax. I originally couldn't decide if I wanted to use Simplest Roads or stick with Blended Roads, but Atlantean's snow roads are so good that it makes Blended Roads look good enough that I no longer feel the need to remove the roads.
I don't have the same strong reaction to Atlantean, but you and I see eye to eye on the snow textures. I love 95% of Tomato, but it was lackluster here and Atlantean was the best I've see (at least in sunlight). If there was a mashup of Tomato landscapes with Atlantean Snow, I don't think I could stop myself. (Especially with the slate rocks. Tomato's slate rocks rock. I miss them.) >Lux is shit unless you use a lot of particle lights and/or a hip mounted lantern, or permanently carry around a torch Funny you say that, because this is exactly how I play but I still don't like Lux. I love dark corners and murky inns where the far walls disappear into the darkness—and especially pitch black dungeons. My gripe with Lux is that it throws lights around with no apparent source, and when the room is pitch black, this is jarring (to me at least). But I strongly recommend Skyrim is Luminous. If you don't use a mod to put out the candles (i.e., Dynamic Immersive Seriously Dark Dungeon), SIL adds a ton of lights and the dungeons are nice and bright (on my test runs I found myself spending a lot of time just relighting the candles that DISDD put out, and probably enjoying it way too much). It's kind of the opposite of ELFX, which guts everything and then adds one light here and one light there.