The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Discussion Thread

[highlanders]

Is the wood elf supposed to be hard or maybe I'm just bad? I would sneak and kill one guy, then the others would get suspicious, and I had the time to maybe take off half the health of a second guy, then I'd get swarmed and die. I had lvled up block and one hand as a secondary method for when they got close but the damage was too low.

 

Few months later, I decided to take up the game again, this time with a high elf and it's been going without a hitch.

[chenw]

most likely due to how you are more farmiliar with the game.

 

I have had same problem with sneak and weapon problems of my own, then I leveled smithing to 100 so I can make dragon weapons (already had a few dragons killed back then, had enough for dragon scale armor and a set of dragon bone daggers).

 

Initially with that and highish sneak, the game was near impossible due to vastly lower combats, but after that it becomes an Bethesda game where Sneak is obscenely overpowered. (Killing one of the guys engaging in an ongoing conversation when they are standing literally next to each other and the other guy doesn't even bat an eye lid)

[Jeffwilson99]

Yeah once you get to a high sneak level with proper perks and enchantments, you're pretty much invisible every time you enter sneak mode. 

[Randox]

So I started getting back into this game yesterday, and as is my custom after a break, I started looking at my mods and looking around to see what's new since I last made my picks. In what was perhaps a mistake, I also had a look at unreal's pictures and mod list (found here), and that's just not an attainable standard for normal gameplay (even if your computer is powerful enough to run all those mods at once, the game would almost certainly be critically unstable). On the upside, I did walk away with new character skin because I hate the Breton female one (also, he isn't kidding. Those skin mods are absolutely NSFW).

 

Swapped out Climates of Tamriel for Pure Weather since I am already running Pure Water. Figured why not. I can't say I am familiar enough with either to really notice the differences in the weather, however the Pure Weather mod combines with enhanced saturation for a fairly noticeable effect. As a neutral consideration, it's darker than CoT, particularly when it's cloudy at night. I already have a belt mounted lantern to deal with CoT night's, and while it's still pretty freaking dark, it's very well done and something I can deal with. My biggest gripe is that Pure Weather has some serious glare issues. Snow, and a few other textures can become blinding from the wrong angle, though it's possible my other mods are interfering with some of the textures (it comes with it's own textures for things like snow).

 

I've also gotten SKSE so that I can have SkyUI and Acceleration Layer running. And of course, since my hardware has changed, I redid my ini files now that the site I use to do so once again exists.

 

 

I have however had a lot of problems with the dragonborn addon. It seems that uGridsToLoad=5 is pretty much mandatory if you don't want to crash the game on Solstheim, particularly around Miraks temple. That took a while to sort out. Actually, I'm not sure if I even totally solved the CTD problem because I actually avoided a little bit of the map on the try where everything worked. Not going back to that spot to find out. I also suspect that acceleration layer might be an issue (seems to be effective, but it's also older than any of the DLC I think, so that seems like a potential issue). I was also getting a CTD from opening the map (including once on the mainland) so Warburg's map for Dragonborn has been removed, and I think for the rest of my stay on the island, I will be running Skyrim normally, without SKSE. I've spent enough time, and this build seems to be stable. I will be returning my deactivated mods when I finish off Dragonborn, though ini tweaks will take some considering. Chances are I won't need to go back to Solstheim and the game seemed quite stable elsewhere with a higher uGrid setting (7).

 

I have not yet caved and gotten an ENB mod, though I might, once I get out of Solstheim (doesn't seem like a good place to run more mods and tweaks than you have to). I found one that I think I would like called RealVision ENB (performance) that both looks very nice and has a minimal impact (hence the name, and also important because I am running my CPU pretty hard). Problem is that it was designed to work with CoT (which I suspect I will ultimately go back to), and frankly, the installation looks like a complicated pain. Still, it looked pretty lovely in Gopher's video of it.

 

I also found this tweaking guide (here) which I wish I had found a long time ago. It's easily the best one I have come across from the parts I've read so far, and I have a feeling that once I am back in Skyrim, I will be taking a look at my ini files again taking into consideration what I have learned (it's actually kind of nice that the problems are on Solstheim. You don't have the same massive expanses that you do in Skyrim, so running some lower settings isn't particularly noticeable).

 

Anyway, this is what my game currently looks like when everything is working:

 

 

Links to higher quality steam versions above each pic.

 

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/451790494485411825/85CAB656C683CE9656D805F09CAB98510750BD26/

This is a clear night. It get's darker. This is why I normally have lanter out.

 

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/451790494485413555/DD0C14ECD1A41244A01B80F94BEAFBEEBBEBAD3E/]

Wish I had taken this in first person for use as a desktop background (someday). Apparently there is an awesome sunrise behind me, but I'm too busy looking at Markarth because everything about Markarth is gorgeous. Except for the people. They're just terrible.

 

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/451790494485414418/318786AA10D8BB68C7FE66D11C91FB1919EC8AE2/]

This one is tricky. From third person, the reflection doesn't extend across the lake without a really low angle like it is here (first person negates the issue). I love this view, but looking at it now makes me want to find a new dirt texture. I think what's happened is that the far shore is actually outside my high detail rendering range (as is a portion of the lake). Assuming that's a purely GPU intensive issue, I think that can be fixed.

 

 

[Alg]

To avoid cluttering the Today thread:

 

 

So what I think I need for Skyrim is primarily a damage multiplier. I need one so that late game run of the mill monsters don't become an exercise in patience, and they need one so that run of the mill monsters can actually hurt me. Everyone should be way easier to kill, except perhaps things like Dragons. I never want Dragons to become this easy again. I miss the days when a dragon meant there was a sporting chance I was about to die.

I have yet to see a difficulty mod for Skyrim that didn't just up the damage and health on every monster to absurd levels, probably on the assumption that nobody is capable of showing any discretion when it comes to avoiding min-maxing. TES in general is just kind of damage-sponge-heavy, you're probably better off finding a different game if you want strategic combat.

 

That said, please post if you find a good one. :-P

[Randox]

I actually had a mod in mind when I posted that. The combat has been an annoyance for a while, but it was watching Gopher's second Skyrim playthrough that put the idea in my head to actually do something about it. Up till then, I was sticking purely to graphics oriented mods, not ones that touched on gameplay. The mod is a total overhaul of the game called Skyrim Reborn (SkyRe). What made this one click for me is that weapons in this overhaul do a lot more damage, but as far as I can tell, health has not been scaled up. Among many many other things, the mod also enhances both weaknesses and strengths. There is a video by Gopher covering SkyRe on the mod page if your interested. This idea also meshed well with starting a new game after reverting my game to vanilla and rebuilding the mods list.
 
I've spent all my free time over the last couple days learning way more about modding, and what things cause problems and so on, and then downloading and setting up a bunch of new mods, and I think it's to the point where I am happy, and ready to start the game once more, this time for real (I've had to start the game entirely too many times while testing this setup out). To the best of my knowledge, anyone who wanted to try just the graphical side of my setup without the SkyRe overhaul, and other gameplay altering mods I have added to accompany it, should be able to simply not install these mods without any problems (none of the graphical ones depend on them or anything). This is my exact load order, dictated largely by boss with unrecognized mods placed manually.
 
If you want to duplicate this entire setup, you must read the installation instructions for each mod. It is important that some of these mods be installed in a particular order, and I will make note of special cases as I remember them, however it is likely I do not remember them all. Also, it's good practice to read the documentation for any mod you install. For anyone wondering about these mods, Gopher has done reviews of pretty much all of them. These can be found in his mod review playlists on his channel.
 
Also note: Some of these mods require one or more DLC to function. Some of them have alternate versions, or patches that you will see. At least one has no non DLC version (I think it requires dawnguard), and don't remember which ones are which. Again, read installation instructions!
 
[hide=esm/esp list and load order]
Update
Dawnguard
HearthFires
Dragonborn
ClimatesOfTamriel
Unofficial Skyrim Patch
Unofficial Dawnguard Patch
Unofficial Hearthfire Patch
Unofficial Dragonborn Patch
HiRes TexturePack01
HighRes TexturePack02
HighRes TexturePack03
Unofficial High Resolution Patch
Chesko_Frostfall
Supreme_Storms - CoT Version (requires Climates of Tamriel. Non CoT version available)
Chesko_WearableLantern (this is handy for Climates of Tamriel. Little to no gameplay impact)
WetandCold
SkyUI (requires SKSE)
iHUD (immersive HUD. Requires SKSE)
BlackSacramentArmour (complicated with SkyRe, covered bellow)
Cloaks (Cloaks of Skyrim. I've decided not to use this myself, but this is where the mod would go if it were still enabled)
DragonbornArmourFix (I've forgotten which mod this actually belongs to. It is not a mod on it's own)
DeadlyDragons (SkyRe does not overhaul dragons. This is one of the mods you can use instead. I am using the lore version which does not add new dragon types)
SkyRe_Main (these are the SkyRe modules I have chosen. They are all part of the same mod)
SkyRe_Combat
SkyRe_CraftingFix
SkyRe_EnemyAI
SkyRe_EnemyScaling
SkyRe_StandingStones
SkyRe_Survivalisim
dD - Enhanced Blood Main
dD - Dragonborn-Dawnguard-EBT Patch (you must pick the appropriate compatability patch when using DLC. No patch required to cover Hearthfire)
Open Cities Skyrim (no loading screen to get into cities)

OCS + Hearthfire Patch

OCS + Dragonborn Patch (these are patch files for open cities. There are a couple others for specific mods that I am not using)
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Brighter Dungeons (BOSS doesn't recognize this, but does recognize the normal version)
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Dawnguard Interiors (all these realistic lighting are from the same mod)
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Exteriors
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Interiors
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Minor Cities and Towns Interiors
ClimatesOfTamriel-Nights-Level-4 (this is the last CoT mod file. DO NOT use any of the other types with realistic lighting installed. For example, don't use one for dungeons)
Dual Wield Parrying (requires SKSE and a NEW SAVE)
SPTConsistentOlderPeople (makes sure everyone with old people faces has old people bodies)
Purewaters (I consider this, or another water mod, a must have)
PrinceandPauper (redoes the clothes for children to add variety and reflect class/wealth)
Warburg's 3D Paper World Map - Texture 2 (there is also one in the style of I think Oblivion. This map removes satellite view and includes a detailed and accurate rendition of roads)
Warburg's 3d paper world map - dawnguard (compatability patch)\
Warburg's 3D Paper World Map - Dragonborn (this adds the map style to dragonborn. Not strictly required, but recommended for consistency)
ReProccer (patch for adding things like armour mods to SkyRe)
ReProccerNONPLAYERfix (from balbor reproccer patch detailed bellow)
ReProccerDragonborn (from the same mod as above)
[/hide]
 
[hide=Mod List - Categorized]
Graphical - For visual effect. These do not alter gameplay
Enhanced Blood Textures
Enhanced Blood Textures - Dragonborn-Dawnguard Parth
Enhanced Distant Terrain 2
Lush Trees and Grass (using vanilla trees and lush grass options)
Project Reality - Climates of Tamriel V3 (using options that can be seen with my load order)
Pure Waters
Realistic Lighting Overhaul (options can be seen from my load order)
Supreme Storms for Climates of Tamriel (non CoT version available)
Warburgs 3D Paper Map - Beta Dragonborn addon
Warburg's 3D Paper Map - Dawnguard Addon
Warburg's 3D Paper Map - Texture 2
Wearable Lanterns
Wet and Cold
Consistent Older People
Prince and the Pauper - Alternate
 
Overhaul - These mods alter gameplay
Arise - Chapter 1 - The Black Sacrament - Black Sacrament Armour
Cloaks of Skyrim (no longer activating this one, but that's the name)
Deadly Dragons
Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival
Open Cities Skyrim (may also require patch files, download and install manually. Includes readme with instructions)
Skyrim Community Uncapper (very much suggested for SkyRe)
T3nd0s Skyrim Redone (SkyRe)
 
Patches - These are mods that handle stability and compatability
The Unofficial Patches (I'm not typing them all out again. There's 5, seen in the above list)
ReProccer (automated SkyRe patch generator)
Balbor and Steelsouls SkyRe ReProccer Project (this is a patch for the ReProccer. Very much suggested)
SUM - SkyProc Unified Manager (used to run ReProccer without sorting mods with BOSS. Used because not all mods are BOSS recognized)
 
SKSE Mods - These mods require SKSE
Categorized Favorites Menu
Categorized Favorites Menu Oni Edition (this is a compatibility addition for the above)

Duel Weild Parrying
Immersive HUD (iHUD)
RealVision ENB (ENB post processing mod)
SkyUI (includes the Mod Control Panel, which several mods outside this category use, such as frostfall)

 

Other

Almost forgot about this one because it has no esm/esp file at all. You'll see it in my screenshots (maybe) though. I hate the Breton female skin because I can't make a character who looks either marginally happy, or less than 40. I have installed "SG Textures Renewal" (UNP version) which is just textures added to the data folder. THE MOD PAGE IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK! I don't believe ANY of the body texture mods are safe for work! I mean, in game they can be fine, but the mod pages are unfailingly more graphic.
[/hide]
 
[hide=What's with ReProccer]
This is complicated. Gopher has an excellent video covering this. SkyRe uses higher damage values on all weapons as part of the balancing, and a different armour scale (up to 900, which is 90% protection). This means that armour and weapons being added to  this mod such as immersive armors, or the black sacrament armor I have added, will be unbalanced and completely useless in SkyRe. ReProccer rebalances armor, weapons, and some other things automatically when it's accompanying program is run (which generates the file in my esm/esp list). The patch for it has some fixes, as well as specific information on a number of mods (including black sacrament) to ensure they are well balanced.
[/hide]
 
If you are going to use these mods, make your life easy. Sign up to nexus, and use the mod manager. A number of these mods have options that NMM can keep straight, and it makes removing the mods much easier since many of them include long lists of files beyond the esm or esp files that you activate. NMM will take care of that in the same way as the Steam Workshop.
 
Some of these mods are more involved to setup. As a rule, put in the graphical mods first, then the overhaul mods. SkyRe I think requires that frostfall be installed first if they are to integrate (so that skyre wayfarer perks can help with frostfall). The ENB mod requires a number of graphical mods be installed first as well. The ENB mod is by far the most involved to install. Read the instructions, and Gopher naturally has a video showing you how to add one. He also covers a number of ENB mods if you want a different look.
 
I highly recommend the use of ENB. If your computer can handle it (and there is a performance version of the one I picked that gets a lot of the look without the computer murder you can try), these mods add as much as all the graphical mods put together. Just follow the instructions to the letter.
 
I have included an ini tweak that fixes a few decals that fade way faster than they should (noteable the moss on whiterun stone walls around the city). It has a negligeable affect on performance. Thus far, I have done no other ini tweaking aside from that required for ENB (running based off ultra settings). Simply add these 3 lines to the bottom of the Skyrim.ini file located in Documents/My Games/Skyrim
 
[LightingShader]
fDecalLODFadeEnd=0.2000
fDecalLODFadeStart=0.3000

 

You are also going to have to install SKSE, and run Skyrim through that. As always, Gopher has a video (just search SKSE on his channel, and there is a link to the channel down at the bottom of this post) to walk you through it. Made me a lot more comfortable with it. This should be pretty much the first thing you add, before any of the SKSE mods. For bonus points, the game launches way faster with SKSE. SKSE is Skyrim Script Extender, and it's a tool for mod developers that just gives them way more things they can play with. For example, mods can't detect key presses without SKSE.

 

Lastly, I have some pictures of my game with these mods (except lush trees in most of them, as I hadn't yet remembered it) from testing up on my steam page that I don't want to reupload right now, so you can view them there (last time I reuploaded them I lost a lot of quality and I don't feel like looking for another site right now).

 

Pictures 'getting back' and forward (the ones from today) are with all the mods running, including enb. 'Pretty Sky' is the first (and as of this post only) one with lush trees running as well. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198053093491/screenshots/?appid=72850

 

Gophers Playlist Page: http://www.youtube.com/user/GophersVids/playlists

And his biggest mod playlist, which doesn't show up right away because it started a while ago: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96C073B0B8BFC01D

 

Again, this setup is demanding. It pushes my HD 7950 graphics card (which is no slouch) near it's limits. CPU seems to be a bit less of an issue. For me, this puts my computer under more total load than games like GTA4 or Fallout 3, mostly because my CPU would give up on those games before my GPU was even trying. That's actually pretty awesome, because this means my computer can really push it's potential.

 

I will of course post back here if I find this build to be unstable. I know open cities will cause at least some minor bugs (it activated a quest for me entering windhelm that involved talking to a guard on the other side of the city), but I am going to try it. Not running the cloaks mod might also help with this, I'm not entirely sure (to the best of my knowledge, with the correct load order it is compatible with SkyRe. Be mindful of it's list of mods it does not play well with, and put it as low in the load order as possible). Using NMM didn't work for me with this mod, so I downloaded manually and added the required files which I have added to my load order.

 

EDIT: Forgot a couple things. First, I forgot to add the compatibility patches for Open Cities itself. They are kind of important. Needed for both Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLC.

Also relating to open cities, there are memory issues in the latest version of Skyrim, which this mod requires, that can cause crashes and infinite loading screens. The fix is to run SKSE version 7.0 or greater, and add the following to the SKSE.ini file, located in Skyrim\Data\SKSE (you may need to make this file. To do so, create a text file with notepad, rename it to SKSE.ini including extension, say yes to the prompt if there is one, then open and add the text):

 

[Memory]
DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=768
ScrapHeapSizeMB=256

 

I should also emphasize that if running SkyRe and using the ReProccer, it is vital that you rerun the reproccer program anytime a mod is enabled or disabled, or the load order changes. The generated patch files depend on the master list that was in use when the patch was created. For the sake of caution, rerun this anytime the data folder (or folders in the data folder) is modified. Doesn't take very long.

 

Also, it is probably a good idea to get TES5edit and use it to clean the update and DLC files. Gopher has a walkthrough on how to do it properly, use it. The game files are all perfectly fine to run the vanilla version of the game, but cleaning them properly ensures maximum mod compatibility. This will take a few minutes.

[Low Levelled]

Anyone still playing?

[unkn0wnwarrior]

I've set it aside for a bit. I'll pick it back up once Perkus Maximus is officially released.

[Randox]

I've started playing again over the last week (that SkyRe game). Added a couple more mods to reskin elven and glass armor. Nothing too fancy, they're just recolors instead of remodeled armor. This makes it very easy to put them in and take them out, since they aren't part of the load order, and they won't stand out too much from the vanilla armors. One of them turns elven armor black and silver, and one to make glass armor look more frozen. Figured if I am going to end up using light armor, I might as well make it not look stupid, and I really don't like vanilla elven or glass (or dwarven). Also looking at a mod that would allow me to take Spellbreaker apart and use it to turn other shields into (even stronger) spellbreaker shields. I am unsure how this will work in concert with SkyRe though, which must have stronger ward spells (I've not looked) to account for the increased damage, and I bet that won't carry over. Might still give it a shot.

[Ammako]

When you realize that Skyrim is now already 3 years old.

[jasignhagj]

tfw feels

 

When you realize that Skyrim is now already 3 years old.

 

I should really get around to beating Skyrim...

[Low Levelled]

We are getting old, man

[L S D Outlaw]

Skyrim???

 

They go against everything I love about video games. Especially the massively multiplayer thing. I bought Skyrim for my 360 and....

 

I was so alone....

 

:(

[Randox]

Skyrim???

 

They go against everything I love about video games. Especially the massively multiplayer thing. I bought Skyrim for my 360 and....

 

I was so alone....

 

:(

Not being your style is all well and good, but it seems an odd criticism to make unless you didn't know it was a single player game when you bought it. Most games fall into the category of not being MMORPG's.

[L S D Outlaw]

I bought Skyrim as a temporary fix while I save up for a laptop.

 

And once I started playing runescape again, I pawned my Xbox360 with all those cant beat Runescape games.

[Poppet]

Playing Skyrim on a console must have been suffering. I hope you got it on the steam sale.

 

I took some screenshots recently if anyone was interested.

 

https://steamcommunity.com/id/popetto/screenshots/?appid=72850&sort=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=imagewall

[L S D Outlaw]

Beautiful! Still theres a lot of running around searching for a monster to kill.

That wouldn't happen in a much funner to play game like Diablo III where the whole game is power leveling, dead demonic monsters by the 50s.

[L S D Outlaw]

And whats with the combat system? Swing sword 3 different ways? Running and attacks cause large fatigue losses?

[Poppet]

It's not like you can't mod it to be like that.

 

SkyRe or its more brutal sister Requiem and whatever immersion mods you fancy.

[L S D Outlaw]

Modding as in changing the game at your own will?

 

I didn't even know that was possible...

[Estonian dude]

Modding is the main appeal of Skyrim. Buying it for console is completely stupid, IMO.

[Dizzle229]

Unless you don't have a computer that can run it, which I didn't in 2011.

 

On topic, I can't believe Skyrim is as old as it is. It's something I have anchored in my mind as something that just came out.

[Poppet]

Skyrim without mods is like an awful 6/10 game. Good enough to play but more suffering than it really should be. Bethesda's lack of proper bug fixing ends up making this game unplayable often.

 

Modding is the only way to make this game decent if not all the way to 11/10.

[Alg]

Modding as in changing the game at your own will?

 

I didn't even know that was possible...

Ooh, you're in for a treat.

 

Put simply: Bethesda games tend to work better as platforms for mods than they do games in their own right.

[Poppet]

 

Modding as in changing the game at your own will?

 

I didn't even know that was possible...

 

Ooh, you're in for a treat.

 

Put simply: Bethesda games tend to work better as platforms for mods than they do games in their own right.

The honest truth. Rip ESO.