[Opinion] Skyrim Redone or ACE - Combat Skills

[Earitory]

Hello forums :)

 

First I want to state, that I apologize if this type of topic has been brought up before, I would like for this thread to be closed then, and if possible pointed towards the thread as my searching didn't bring anything up. Also if this was posted in a the wrong section, could a moderator please move it to the correct area!

 

In any case I have been stumped for the past few weeks trying to figure out what I should use to best enhance my Skyrim gameplay (in this case "Perk Overhaul"). The two mods I would like opinions on are:

-- T3nd0s Skyrim Redone (SkyRE) [http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9286/]

and

-- Athyra's Comprehensive Enhancements (ACE) [http://skyrim.nexusm...com/mods/10037/].

 

My dilemma is, I've used both mods, however I haven't had the chance to extensively use either of them due to other circumstances (real life, game instability due to various mods, etc) and would like to hear the opinions of people who have extensively used either both of these mods, separately obviously, or either of them separately. I've read through the comments of both mods, as well as the description of each. While I have an understanding of both mods, I would simply like to gain opinions from those who have used these mods more extensively than I have.

 

What I'm looking for is rather simple:

- Your experience with the mod (How the mod has enhanced your gameplay respectively)

- Compatibility with other mods, specifically conflicts or small issues that can be either non-gamebreaking or can be fixed.

- What mods have you found that compliment SkyRE or ACE? (Preferably significant mods)

- (SkyRE) Do you HAVE to use compatibility patches?

- Any annoyances or bugs with the respective mod?

- If not SkyRE or ACE which mod would you suggest?

 

Thank you for those of you who take the time to reply to this, your information is greatly appreciated.

 

Also, I am not trying to start a flame war or anything negative of the sort. If someone posts something that is opposite of your beliefs then please take it to PM or do not post a negative reply at all. I would like to keep this thread clean and DEBATE free, so that I can gather information and make an informed choice.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Earitory

[dpgza]

Probably too late this answer comes, but if you still looking for an answer, this is mine.

So, i played with both so i am gonna take them 1 by 1 with the good and bad parts.

 

Skyrim Redone has nice perk modification. However, as nice as it may look, when you play it you start to see that it has too many bugs related to perks.For example, the conjuration perk tree. The author splited the tree into ... something like necromancy on one side and atronachs in the other, and the mid having necromancy boosting perks. Looks nice at first sight, but he focused the necromancy side of the perks on raise undead spell wich he said it is permanent instead of 60 seconds ( default ). Problem is, the undead raised cant equip any gear you place in the body, does not fast travel with you so he just disapears from the world after you fast travel, and of course, its weaker then the npc he was before due to the nature of the spell ( 25 % less dmg and so on, etc etc ).

I said ok, i shall go for the atronch side in perk tree. Problem is, atronchs suck. Low hp, low dmg output and so on. I ended up ignoring conjuration wich was my plan for gameplay style.

 

On short words, i wanted to be a mage conjurer but i ended up being an archer.Why ? Because i needed like 7-10 power attacks from a two-hand weapon to kill low level bandit, a wolf was two-shoting me, crabs were buffed to become the new panzer tank ( at some point i saw a fight between 6 crabs and 10-12 bandits, crabs won ).

But the most awfull part was the combat.It was so unbalanced. The combat is awfull in my view on vanilla game anyway, but the author tried to fix it by making it even harder. Fine but it doesnt seem right to do 7-10 power attacks on a simple bandit with a strong weapon.

I tried to go over this and get a combat mod to change things, wich it worked. But due to the nature of changes in armor formulas and things like that, it brought other problems.

 

So, the good parts are that it has nice changes in perks, even when many of them are buged. Bad part: combat becomes incredibly awfull ( lower lvl enemies are too easy, higher lvl enemies are like gods so there is no balance ), spells in early game cant kill anything ( enemies have too much hp so you spend all the mana to kill one, after when the second comes you are fcked 100 % ).

About compatibility: most must have mods become incompatible. For example, the author made changes into armor ( he made 10 armor to be 1% dmg reduction ) so any armor from other mods will be useless.Of course there are patches, but only for some mods.

 

My opinion : he made changes where he should not do.Over zealous.

 

Now, i am gona say about ACE. Its not much to say, just that it is more simple but much more stable.The perk trees were not so heavy changed like in Skyrim Redone, but all the changes do work as the author say and to be honest i found zero bugs ( and most users said the same ).Another good thing is that the modules are split, so you can choose some of them.So you can choose a combat mod to enhance your gameplay experience.One of the things wich i did, and i tried Duel - Combat Realism,wich worked out very well.I also added a mod for split difficulty ( one esp for npc's to do more dmg and one esp for me to do 100 % dmg and not to get reduced dmg on dificulty change ). This combined made combat incredible furious and extremly deadly. I had to be realy carefull when enganging in combat. Combined with perk trees wich were stable, it turned out nice.

As compatibility, ACE is incredibly compatible with any mod out there considering the many changes they made.

 

So, in the end i want to say that ACE is more stable, it keeps the vannila feeling, and because of being stable doesnt make the player feel like "i need some more mods, i feel that something aint right".

 

This is my opinion on both mods, and dont get me wrong, maybe i did something wrong here ( but i installed Skyrim Redone like 10 times to be able to get the game like i want and couldnt find the right formula ).

 

If you pick Skyrim Redone the must have mods are only Immersive Armors, most other mods wont work.

If you pick ACE must have mods are Duel - Combat Realism and Custom Difficulty Split Version ( for combat ), Immersive Armors and Immersive Weapons.

 

If you choose any of the mods get ASIS.Its a tool to have increased spawns ( and other utilities ).Hope it helps.

Edited January 26, 2013 by dpgza

[Rykoth]

ACE hands down. You don't need compatibility patches and it doesn't clutter the perk trees! I've found my experience with ACE is on the side of extremely positive.

[jack013]

I don't like redone either, it did too much and added way too much, and, depending on what kind of path you took you'd either end up super op or not.

ace was good, some stuff was too much fuss; little debuffs that change very little, but i was always thinking about playing differently just in case that little thing helps.. but it was well thought out and not too much.

 

in the end i made my own, some simple changes to make things a little more varied but basically vanilla+. along with stealth skills rebalanced.

Edited January 27, 2013 by jack013

[MakotoSamurai]

I disagree with all who say that you can be OP with SkyRe. First of all you could be OP in vanilla every time, SkyRe (if you use the full experience all esps) gives you a challenge every time. I am a thief/assassin lvl 18 and I am having problems with that rat man in the thieves guild quest. I play on Expert by the way and would recommend that difficulty if you choose SkyRe for the challenging gameplay.

 

Also SkyRe gives you a great feel, you want to be a Necromancer?

 

You have perks that let you harvest the bones and organs form slain enemies and make skeleton minions that follow you permanently and when you upgrade Tongues of Old perk to the fullest you can equip your minions with equipment of choice. It is just very cool especially if you install the race specific skeleton mod which is a must have.

 

You want to be an assassin?

 

There are perks that let you make small explosive concoctions and smoke bombs that you can throw or you can sneak/give them to foes so that they explode in their pockets and do additional damage. You can craft spike traps and with the right perks poison them to and lure your enemies in them. You can craft and upgrade crossbows with different upgrades which is just cool, a scope, a silencer literally anything that comes to mind.

 

There are to many specific perks to tell you all about them but really if you have any type of character and you don't want to be a spell slinging, maser archer, grand healer, two and one handed weapon specialist all at once you must get this mod.

 

As for the mod that compliment them, SkyRe has a special addition for those that love total immersion, it adds a special survival perk tree for people that also install Frostfall.

 

I also use Immersion Armors with it and yes you need a compatibility patch with that, but not because the mod won't work without it the armors would just be op without the compatibility patch,and that goes with all the armor and weapon mods.

 

The core mod IS compatible with all the other mods that don't change the perk trees, I just recommend that you experience the SkyRe to the fullest, and than the only BIG mod that I know is not compatible with it and has no compatibility patch is the Skyrim Monster Mod because one of the additional SkyRe esps edits the leveled lists.

 

Also no bugs in the mod and I don't see the fuss in using compatibility patches they are all linked on the mod page. ;)

Edited January 27, 2013 by MakotoSamurai

[kryptopyr]

I'm a fan of ACE as well. The modular structure is really nice and makes it very flexible for combining with other mods. Along with ACE, I also use Stealth Skills Rebalanced, Balanced Magic, Speech Tree, and the Alchemy module from Path of Shadows. Edited January 29, 2013 by kryptopyr

[Rykoth]

See, I'll have to agree with that statement of SkyRE being OP. I went to Bleak Falls, killed bandits, found they ALL had crossbows, and suddenly I was a ranged god.

[MakotoSamurai]

See, I'll have to agree with that statement of SkyRE being OP. I went to Bleak Falls, killed bandits, found they ALL had crossbows, and suddenly I was a ranged god.

 

Not to be rude but at what difficulty are you playing? Crossbows are one hit weapons and you don't get a second chance, they do more damage than bows but they are slooooooooooooooow to reload, slow enough that any enemy will kill you if you don't switch weapons.

[luzburg]

Anyone saying SkyRe is easy is obviously playing on a lower difficulty. Anything below expert is too easy. Crossbows are very strong at low levels, but they lose power at higher levels because they have no damage perks.

 

SkyRe aims to give you a realistic feel. You can kill many enemies quite quickly but they can kill you just as fast. Its fast and furious, like a real fight.

[Georgiegril]

I have used Skyre the last couple play throughs. I think it has a lot of plusses, and a few minuses. Whether it will be better for you than ACE, I think, may depend on what it is you are looking for.

I used ACE once, long time back. I liked the changes to the combat style. There may be more to it now, I haven't kept up.

 

I really enjoy SkyRe, in part because it does affect many areas of the game-- not merely combat but crafting, travel, perks/experience, magic, etc.

People who complain about it leading to overpowered characters, I think may not be adapting the Skyrim Community Uncapper properly. If you play it and you find it too easy, it is simple to change the Community Uncapper values to increase the challenge. Personally, I have always used the Skyre values that are suggested for this as a guide, but not gospel. I appreciate that SkyRe allows fine tuning to my personal preferences in this way. Generally speaking, using skyre made the game I had played through four or five times previously feel fresh and sometimes surprising.

 

On the negative side, the came does require a fair bit of fussing with to make sure all of your mods are compatible. The author is very involved in this mod still, which I consider a plus, but it is also sometimes a negative because there are pretty big changes between versions/updates at times. Also the changes may not exactly always work as planned--although in my experience the problems are minimal and not game-breaking.

 

Ultimately, I think the only real way for anyone to decide what they prefer is to try it out. If you aren't enjoying it, the most you are looking at is starting a new game/character.