Skyrim

[Syt]

Yeah, I noticed this when I was trying out various Wabbajack lists; a single download folder sped up things tremendously.

[Syt]

Confession time - I never finished the main quest of Skyrim, despite having probably 200-300 hours in the game total.

I was going to play through it this time. I use the Lost Legacy modlist after all. Living Skyrim is nice, but it seemed also a little bit bland? So yeah, I looted Link's costume from Bleakfalls Barrows, there's Ayleid(?) teleport shrines, and giant spiders on the tundra, so what? (There's still ways to curb some of the lore-unfriendliness in the mod settings.)

I generally like the gameplay changes. I disabled survival (because for me it makes the game more tedious, not interesting). Also, I tried the Shadow of Skyrim effects in an earlier modlist I tried and switched it off for this run - it's a mix of Shadow of Mordor's and Outward's death systems. You can set parameters where if a humanoid enemy defeats you, they can become a boss, gain some buffs, apply a debuff to you and claim some of your gear until you return to defeat them. From Outward they took that if you die you wake up in a different location/situation. Again, great on paper, but if you get stomped by a wooly rhino near Whiterun only to wake up near Falkreath ... maybe not ideal.

I did like the alternate start where you're a visitor in Helgen and see the execution and dragon attack as an outsider before going through the usual tutorial. Interesting change of perspective. I went with my usual Orc kind of character - one handed, block, heavy armor, smithing, destruction, alchemy. I'm not following any god or daedra at this time.

I normally play without followers (because they can be very janky in vanilla). With mods it's a lot less painful (them avoiding traps, disabling "friendly fire" so you don't accidentally hurt them in melee combat etc.). It's very customizable, though, if you want the "normal" experience. Also, using followers I can crank up the difficulty a slight bit. And if I run into a level 65 Spriggan after leaving Bleakfalls Barrow, they can keep it busy while I hightail it and then summon them back to me

Leveling has been changed a bit. You still level up your abilities by using them. However, your character level goes up by earning experience instead of from leveling those skills - this comes from finishing quests (including the mission boards in towns the list adds), exploration, reading books ... each level you then get a perk point. Additionally, I added the optional skyshards, a concept from Elder Scrolls Online. 108 shards are spread across the map and collecting them can earn you more perk points. The default is 1 point per 3 shards, but it can be customized. You can also customize whether or not they should emit their "beacon" (a big light beam to show their location), or whether you want "riddle" descriptions of all their locations. I'll probably be OP by the end, but I don't mind too much for now.

The modlist adds a bunch of followers. A very n00b friendly one is the Argonian Lucifer. His name is not Argonian, he doesn't speak like an Argonian, but there's a whole story around uncovering his backstory. I'm honestly impressed with the work on him. You meet him in Dragonreach, and he asks to follow you. He has a ton of well done voice lines and will comment on the main quest, various side quests, locations, and comment on your other followers (while not adding to your "normal" follower count) and providing some tips and reminders of where to go and what to check out. He does *not* like Lydia, though.

For now I'm mixing it between exploration and following main and side quests. My favorite bit about these games is entering random dungeons and seeing what I can find, and the modlist adds plenty of that (e.g. I really liked diving into the Whiterun sewers and finding a whole understructure there going way down and connecting various points of the city - though I have to come back for some parts of it when I'm higher level). My main complaint is that at level 9 I feel fairly well kitted out for a starting character, though that's a small complaint in the grand scheme of things and I'm not sure how far the equipment will scale up.

Also, I feel some of the vendors are too nice to me, letting me take too much of their stuff for free (it's based on how much they like you) - may have to tweak that a bit. I mean it's nice to walk into Warmaidens and pick up crafting materials and arrows for free, but it also feels a little bit too much and exploitative.

(On that note, I love the settings for Better Third Person cam which lets you "filter" items to make it so you can only steal under certain circumstances, e.g. when sneaking and/or undetected - makes it a lot easier to avoid accidentally clicking the wrong item and pissing off everyone around you which was a bane of mine in the past - though it doesn't seem to work for readable items like books or scrolls.)

[Solmyr]

I still need to play with Inigo.

[Syt]

I was on my way to get the dagger from the hagravens when I realized that I've never been to Falkreath.

So me, Lucifer and Lydia headed that way. After kicking some dragon butt on the way, we came across a little cottage named Pinewatch. "Let's check out the place real quick before heading onward! "



 

[Jacob]

Heh... I'm close to 2,000 hours in Skyrim and I've never been to Dawnstar or Solstheim yet. Haven't started either side of the civil war quest line, or gone beyond the first (only?) visit to the Greybeards.

[Jacob]

Man... so I've been playing modded Skyrim for a while, but never really got a lot of mods for making the environment prettier... 1K or 4K textures? New meshes? I'm from the pixel age, so it doesn't really matter....

Last night I spent the evening downloading SO MANY grass mods it's ridiculous - and other stuff too. And you know what, it is a lot prettier. But that's a lot of grass mods....

[Syt]

DID YOU SAY GRASS???

[Syt]

Btw, someone remade Riverwood in Unreal Engine 5:

And Dawnstar:

[Jacob]

I've decided I can't be bothered with dyndolod, so there are a whole bunch of visual upgrades I'm passing on... at least for now.

One of my favourite mods is "Sweeping organizes things". Going to try "Shovels bury bodies" as well

[Syt]

I've decided I can't be bothered with dyndolod, so there are a whole bunch of visual upgrades I'm passing on... at least for now.

After spending many hours modding Oblivion/Skyrim, following mod lists, trying to figure out why something did/didn't work as it should etc., I've fully embraced Wabbajack modlists.

(However, if you prefer doing your own modding, there's actually one Wabbajack list focused on just setting up the essentials - fixes, main tools etc., see here - and one only going for graphical improvements here, so you can get started a bit more quickly on adding gameplay mods or refining the looks.)

[Syt]

Oh, and PC Gamer have released a list of 100+ "best" Skyrim mods for 2023:

https://www.pcgamer.com/best-skyrim-mods/

[Syt]

If you don't want to play as stealth archer but don't trust yourself to follow through:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/92450

This mod adds a new feature to Skyrim: instant death when sneaking and equipping a bow or crossbow. This mod is designed for players who want a more challenging and realistic experience.

 

[grumbler]

If you don't want to play as stealth archer but don't trust yourself to follow through:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/92450

This mod adds a new feature to Skyrim: instant death when sneaking and equipping a bow or crossbow. This mod is designed for players who want a more challenging and realistic experience.

 

A mod for those who can resist anything except temptation.

I do like how it makes the game "more challenging and realistic" because, as we all know, every hunter died the instant they snuck up and tried to shoot their prey with an arrow.

[Josephus]

A mod for those who can resist anything except temptation.

Kudos for the somewhat obscure Rush lyric.

[barkdreg]

Kudos for the somewhat obscure Rush lyric.

You made baby Oscar Wilde cry.