Mods are very easy to install, generally. The potential issue is mods changing the same thing, and thus breaking things. Often they’ll have compatibility lists, though, and you can generally be pretty safe if the specific targets of a given mod aren’t overlapping with another. (So, don’t install multiple lighting mods, say.)
I’m on XBox SE and have about 20 mods installed, no issues so far. I can’t think of any that fundamentally change the game beside Inigo being around all the time for me. There is a weather one that makes storms better and I notice that, but the rest, like “More Signposts” or whatever just feel like small additions that feel like they belong there.
By the way, mods on consoles with Fallout 4 and this are a great direction to go. I think it’s neat we get mods now. Take that, PC gamers!
Ok, good to know my reservations are probably unwarranted. Guess I’ll have to re-install this yet again :-)
I have been thinking about the ES series combat for a couple of days now. I took some mental notes last night about the ebb and flow of combat. Here is the gist of it, those who have played the game a bit will see the first part as rote, but I am breaking down the combat system mechanics in order to improve them.
You have 3 commodities in Skyrim:
- Stamina, used to swing weapons, jump around and sprint, (I’d call this evasion), and slow mo bow shots.
- Magicka, used for spells. This overlaps a bit with potions because of Restoration.
- Health - the ultimate resource to protect
So let’s dismiss the “snipe from the shadows for bow sneak attacks” combat for a moment, because that’s kind of gaming a rather poor AI. You can plink people off like that, but hopefully they will grow wise and start charging in the direction of the arrows.
So now you are in a straight up fight. As I see it, it ebbs and flows like this:
Cast spells, use up mana. When mana gets low, pause game and take potion.
Shoot bow. Maybe use stamina, maybe not. When enemy gets close, pause game and switch to melee.
Swing weapon(s), use stamina. When stamina gets low, pause game and take potion.
Get hit, lose health. When health gets low, pause game and take potion.
Change weapons. Requires pause.
Change spells. Requires pause.
So, no surprise, there is a lot of pausing in this game. This interrupts the flow of combat and stutters your encounters. It also means that the frequent pausing interrupts your movement, positioning, etc.
I would also argue that most enemies close too fast and completely ignore arrows. I’ve never seen anyone block an arrow with their shield besides me. In fact, do NPCs even block, or use shields?
Mostly combat devolves into slugfests. Magic users pretty much need a way to block melee opponents (with a summoned creature or follower) or they will get rocked quick because of a lack of armor.
The strategy that seems to repeat is engage, run away back up the corridor, heal/magicka, then reengage. Bows when appropriate or if the monsters lose aggro and you can sneak again.
So, I think with the above I can reach some conclusions.
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There is way too much pausing. They need to figure out a way to quaff potions better. Perhaps Assign potions and weapon switiching to the D-pad (for consoles). So for instance maybe up switches between bow and last equipped weapon, and the other three each get a potion slot. But…
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Stamina should go. I understand why stamina exists for realism but I just don’t think we need it anymore. I say let people swing as much as they want, and use whatever styles they want. In the AC Origins and Oddyssey games you have two attacks, a light and a strong. I don’t think we need this but let people do power attacks (slower animation) and quick attacks (faster animation) as much as they want. If you must limit the slow mo bow drawing ability, make it a “breath timer” that lasts a max of say 5 seconds and then you lose the zoom. Maybe you can increase that number through perks.
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I would also think about a dedicated spell cast key, maybe use the Right bumper that’s used for Shouts/Powers. I don’t have a good solution for spell selection right now but maybe have a list of most used spells that act on a radial.
Bascially, we need to cut down on the necessity to pause combat so much. If they can accomplish that then they can spend more time on tactics, and maneuvering, and perhaps changing combat speed a bit. Make shields COMPLETE BLOCK damage if it’s up, and tie something else to shield strength, or perhaps more powerful weapons wear down a shield (I do want to avoid weapon degradation, it’s an annoyance of mine to have weapons degrade like The Witcher).
Anyway, some combat thoughts. I do enjoy the combat but it’s very pausy.
It’s a lot easier to install mods nowadays. If you’re only looking at a few non-competing mods (e.g. Arthmoor’s town mods and and a perk overhaul) you could probably just install them through the steam workshop.
If you want to install a lot of graphics replacers, you’ll need to make sure the mods aren’t overwriting each other’s files. You can do this with a mod manager: Mod Organizer or Vortex. Either manager will generate a list of conflicts and you select which files to keep.
Where it gets complicated is with mods that affect the same NPC, weapon, or levelled list. To find and correct these conflicts you need TES5Edit and Wryebash, or patches. These conflicts might be so small as to never matter, or they might break the game. Depends on what’s modded.
Using some common sense you could probably pick out 5-10 mods on Steam and try something different.
What aspect of the gameplay do you want to change with mods?
You don’t even have SkyUI. You literally have no idea what you’re missing.
I wouldn’t have 1500 hours in Skyrim without it. The default UI is shit.
Quote from description:
“It makes the user interface much easier to use with mouse and keyboard…”
Yeah, pass. :)
Frankly it probably makes the game better with gamepads too.
The Skyrim UI is flat out a warcrime.
Ha ha ha. Ok it’s a little clunky I admit. But the radial spell/item/map/skills screen is a vast improvement. They’ll get there. Maybe.
One of my favorite mods for combat is Living Takes Time. With it, you can disable the magic and inventory windows (as well as looting) during combat. That way, you have to hotkey your equipment before the battle. I’d often pause before a planned battle to adjust my favorites loadout.
There was another mod that forced you to drop your weapon if you didn’t sheathe it before pulling out something else. In my opinion, those two mods made Skyrim as tense as any dedicated combat mod.
Just as a PSA - if you are experienced with modding Skyrim, you’ve got a pretty good chance of breaking your saves if you add or remove mods mid-playthrough. If you aren’t experienced, you will almost certainly break your saves if you add anything other than texture/mesh replacers.
There are overhauls that are fine for the inexperienced. I’d recommend trying the STEP system if you are interested in exploring the world of modding. It’s kind of an overwhelming read at first but if you follow it step by step you’ll get a basic grip on it.
Also, if you’ve never used an ENB with Skyrim and your system can handle it, ENB dramatically improves the games visuals. I tend to favor pre-sets that are functional but still attractive. There are some that are more oriented around taking amazing screenshots with super dark shadows but they tend to be a little less fun to actually play. You can just watch some youtubes of various pre-set comparisons or search the nexus for pre-sets and go through their galleries to pick one that is for you. Very subjective.
Is there any reason to install the non SE version from my Steam library vs the SE one?
That’s what I did, since some mods I use weren’t made for the SE.
This thread is making me sort of want to play Mod Skyrim for Days and Not Actually Play Due to Exhaustion.
SE version is better. It uses the FO4 64-bit engine, so it has access to a lot more memory. The default ugrids is 9, so you can see more of the world and more the world is alive. It defaults to higher resolution textures, though still not as good as the mods. The 64-bit engine also allows you to pile on a ton more mods than the LE version.
I realize now this isn’t what you asked, but I’m leaving it. 🙂
To be honest, I don’t really know. Which is part of the problem, I suppose. I think the game was great as it was, although a weight-cheat would definitely be nice. But apparently certain mods, like SkyUI, are all but compulsory these days. So I figured if I try it again, I at least need stuff like that…
It pleases me a great deal to say this:
I just installed the entire Lexy’s LOTD 5.0 mod list entirely with Wabbajack. And it took me all of about 2 hours. Maybe 2.5. Couldn’t have been smoother, really.
And it installed 584 mods, automatically did all the LODGens, mod merges, edits, BSA extracts, etc. Also automatically did the recommended .ini settings. Heck, it even installed SKSE and Mod Organizer 2.0 and set those up.
Seriously, Wabbajack is kind of the most amazing mod installation tool I’ve ever seen.
My Vortex mod manager is full of skyrim SE mods… yes the game does look great still. And if you can find the right difficulty for you the game is still very fun.
Dragons too easy? Mod it. Loot a problem? Mod it. You can adapt an experience through mods that makes this game still a ton of fun.
Nexus – vortex mod manager (though I do not love it) — and mods. Ordinator, Requiem, loot mods, alternate start, even lighting. I would not bother with graphic mods much because SE looks pretty durn good.
Might you link to this please?
Sure, happy to.
This page is seriously all you need. Pay attention to the instructions here, and you should be able to get there.
That guide will have you create a new, vanilla Skyrim SSE install, and set it so that it never updates when Bethesda do their regular Creation Kit refreshes.
Then it has links to the Wabbajack installer and also the modlist file you’ll use.
Follow the instructions as provided as close as you can. For instance, make a Wabbajack folder on the root drive. Put the 1.0 beta 15 Wabbajack.exe that you downloaded it. DON’T RUN IT until you’ve put it in that Wabbajack folder you made, because it’s going to extract a bunch of other files/folders once you run it, along with another “Wabbajack.exe” file that actually runs the program. That’s a little confusing.
Also put the modlist for Lexy’s LOTD mods in there. I think it’s 1.03 now, though it may update soon.
And then be sure you pay attention and make a separate empty install folder also on that root drive. It needs to be empty at the beginning.
And then once you have:
- A clean, vanilla install of Skyrim done in a non UAC location (as in, not in Program Files (x86))
- A Wabbajack folder with the Wabbajack executable and all the files it extracted when you ran it in that folder the first time, AND the Lexys LOTD SE Unofficial Autoinstaller 1.0.x in there too…
- And your clean mod install folder (I just used the suggested Lexy LOTD name from the document)
- THEN click the “new” Wabbajack.exe to launch the program.
4a. Feel free to click “Browse Modlists”, but for Lexy’s LOTD mod extravaganza, DON’T use this. Instead, click “Install From Disk”. Point it to taht modlist file you downloaded. Set the installation directory to the “Lexy LOTD” blank folder you made. If you did it right, you SHOULDN’T need to do anything with the “Download Location”. The program will automatically create a “downloads” subfolder inside the Lexy LOTD folder.
And then click to run, and go watch TV for a while. :) Let it do it’s thing. It will install and configure EVERYTHING, which by hand is about a 2-week process.