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Seeking Advice - Vanilla or Modded - Skyrim LE or SE? (LONG!)


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Hey there,

 

so let me explain what exactly I want to know.

 

Editt: I have written a lot of extra stuff, that has not that much to do with the questions.

I reformated it and put it all in a extra spoiler. Read if you fell like it.

 

To make things more readable I use formating and spoilers.

 

I'm from germany and not a native english speaker, so please excuse all spelling and grammar mistakes.

If you point the mistakes out I will edit my post(s) accordingly.

 

The Question(s)

 

1. Should I play Skyrim Vanilla first before I mod it or mod it first? (Remember I never played the game, aside from mod and stress testing.)

2. If I play vanilla, should it be LE or SE? (I would go with SE on this, because I heard it's more stable.)

2a. If I go for a vanilla run are there any mods to make the game more stable/fix bugs, other than the unoffical patches, I should install?

3, If I should mod it first, should it be LE or SE? (I would go with the LE here, because of things like SKSE, SkyUI and the number of mods.)

3a. Should I mod Skyrim in the first place? (Look below for System Specs.)

System Specs:

 

OS: Win 10 Pro 64-Bit

CPU: AMD FX-6300 Six Core 3,5 GHz - Vishera

GPU: MSI ATI Radeon RX 470 - 8192 MB GDDR5

RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 933 MHz

Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43

HDD: 1 TB - 242 GB Free

SSD: 250 GB - 156 GB Free - OS Disk

Audio: Onboard (Realtek HD Audio)

(Specs provided by Speccy)

 

 

I know my pc is not that good. I used to be a console gamer, until RotTR came. (Now I'm a hybrid gamer.)

I wanted to play it on pc, but had a rather tight budget so this was the best I could do.

 

I know my CPU is weak, but I don't have the money for new parts right now.

(What I can spare is going into preordering AC Origins. Wich I will do in a week or so, I'm kinda hyped xD)

 

Note: I play my Skyrim on english, like nearly all of my games. (It's also how I watch TV/Movies)

 

Additional Info

 

Here I will provide some additional info for you, that is not really necessary to answer the question(s). (excluding my System Specs.)

 

 

 

Background

 

Some things you might want to know, to better understand me and my questions,

 

I have yet to actually play Skyrim. I only played for mod testing purposes. I got myself Skyrim LE about 2 years ago now and before I played it a friend of mine said:

"Wait! Before you play you should mod your game, it makes it a lot better."

So before i really played the game, I started modding, but in the end the game kept on crashing and failing so I gave up and never touched the game until now.

 

In february I upgraded my pc a bit (because of Rise of the Tomb Raider) and now I thought to myself:

"Hey you still have to play Skyrim, mate."

So I opend steam and saw Skyrim (LE) and Skyrim Special Edition (I own both). And this lead to the question I'm (about to) ask(ing) here.

 

There are a few things I already know I have to do for modding and I have watched a few videos to see whats new since I last modded Skyrim.

 

 

 

My knowlege of modding Skyrim:

 

 

 

Things I know:

 

- Clean the Masters (Sykrim.esm, Update.esm, "DLC".esm) I follow the guides from Gopher, Cal from DWM and GamerPoets

- Initial setup of my .ini's. Cal brought BethINI to my attention for this. Use the MO INI-Editor for later edits

- Use MO for modding and not NMM

- Setup SKSE since it's pretty much a given now days

- Setup ENB for ENBoost and Memory Patch

- I know to read mod instructions and readme's

- Run Loot for my Plugin Load Order. (But also double check, since Loot can make mistakes and is not omnipotent)

- Use SPM to watch the impact mods have on my hardware/game

- Run Skyrim through MO > SKSE and not the Launcher

- Setup a Vanilla Profile in MO for later

- Backup my Vanilla Game in an archive. (Game folder/Documents folder/AppData folder)

 

Things I'm still unclear on:

 

- SkyRe and ReProcer the like

- Bashed Patches, Bash Tags

- FNIS and DSR (even when I followed instructions it didn't work as it should)

- Merge Plugins (It doesn't save my settings. I see an error when closing it, but it's gone to fast for me to read it. And aren't bashed patches for this?)

- DynDOLOD

 

All of the "unclear Things" I will have to study up on by myself, I just wanted to mention this so you know where I stand when it comes to modding.

 

Mod Wishlist / Blacklist

 

If I mod my game these are some things I have in mind already. Nothing is set in stone here (more or less).

It's just from experience I already made, from watching videos/screenshots and from stroiling trough the nexus.

If you have some advice here, feel free to tell. (Like "I have similiar specs and mod X dosn't work (well), try mod Y instead.")

 

Edit:

And yes I know of S.T.E.P., but the setup, for some reason (high likely my fault), never worked as it should.

When modding again, I will use S.T.E.P. Core as a Base. I'm not sure if I can go further, because of my CPU.

 

Blacklist:

 

Mods I'm not interested in playing with or can't play with due to hardware.

 

 

 

- ENB or rather no Presets. (With some overhauls you can get a nice looking game without an ENB (I will use ENB for ENBoost and Memory Patch.)

- 4k textures (What do I need 4k for? It's a bit over the top for my taste.)

- Photo realistic things (If I wan't realistic things I meet with friends and have a beer or, I don't know, go LARPing?)

- Physics Extensions (That stuff always trough my Skyrim in "madness-mode" or let to CTD after a while.)

Also my CPU is rather bad so running these won't be possible anyway, I think.

 

- Additional Followers, Houses or Regions (I haven't even played trough the base game)

- CBBE and custom skeleton mods (I don't need bouncy breasts or the like.)

- Eye textures (I don't do youtube or artistic stuff and as a normal player I'm not really gone by close enough to a npc to really see these things.)

- ApachiiSkyHair (it looks good, but doesn't fit Skyrim in my opinon.)

 

 

 

Must-have:

 

Mods I don't want to play a modded Skyrim without.

 

 

 

- USLEEP, UHRP, SKSE and SkyUI (MCM) are a given now days (for LE at least)

- OneTweak (for borderless windowed mode and Alt+Tab)

- iHUD, A matter if Time (or somtihng for a real time clock. I know its a bit immersion breaking but I need a real time clock)

- Skyrim Unbound (so I can start a new game for testing mods more easily)

 

 

 

Wishlist:

 

Mods I would like to have. Ether to make Skyrim look better, be more immersive or because they seem to fix bugs, flaws or kinks.

 

 

- CRF and Paarthurnax Dilemma (though I don't know who Paarthurnax is, from the desciption I can tell a bit.^^)

- moreHUD

- WSCO, RSCO (because I think WSCO doesn't overhaul kids, have to read up on that)

- (Maybe) Superior Lore-Friendly Hair

- RaceMenu

- A Quality World Map

- Realistic Ragdolls and Force (since "everyone" seems to have it)

- Wet and Cold + Footsteps

- Weather mod (My prefrence: Vivid weathers > Climates of Tamriel > Purity > others)

- Water mod (MY preference: Realistic Water Two > Pure Waters > others) + Mintys Lighting Mod (not sure one the name.)

- Immersive Citizens (remove "Run for your lifes", since it seems to be integrated)

- Wearable Lanterns, Simpley Knock

- Immersive Armors/Weapons and/or aMidianBorn Book of Silence

- A sound/music overhaul mod

- A graphic overhaul for Ex-/Interior (maybe Nobel-Skyrim + SFO + ???)

- SMIM

- Dialouge, Horse, Companien Overhaul

 

 

 

For later:

 

Mods I like, but I think are better left for a subsequent playtrough.

 

 

 

- Campfires

- Frostfall

- Cloaks of Skyrim

- iNeed or Realistic Need and Diseases (not sure wich)

- A Winter Mod (maybe)

- Hunterborn

 

Afterword

 

I know I probably went a bit OCD on this post, but I wanted to give you as much information as possible.

And it may have been to much already, here comes some more to finish up this post.

 

This is me comparing Pros and Cons of LE and SE from my point of view!

 

 

 

Why do I want to ask you guys for advice on a decisson I should be able to make on my own?

 

Well, because I think this question is not easily answered. We are in the later half of 2017 now. The

vanilla version of Skyrim just look afwul, afer playing games like The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, RotTR, etc, and has many problems.

 

So simply going for a vanilla run is out of question in my Opinion. To go vanilla would, for me at least, mean Skyrim SE.

But only because of stability. Since it seems there were no (real) graphic updates.

 

This brings us to the next point: Modding.

Skyrim LE has a lot more mods and guides. It also has SKSE and SkyUI (MCM), something Skyrim SE is (dearly) lacking

as of now. Also Skyrim LE has Mod Organizer and though there is MO 2 for Skyrim SE it is not working very good as of now.

 

But!

Skyrim SE has it's perks and is catching up. Unlike "Oldrim" Skyrim SE is a 64-Bit game is mostly better (I'm no expert on this

matter.) Skyrim SE is more stable, SKSE 64-Bit is in the making and MO 2 is worked upon too.

So soon Skyrim LE will be outdated by it's "sucseccor" Skyrim SE.

 

So should one be modding LE because of the mods and tools available or SE because it's newer and will outshine "Oldrim" in

the future?

 

Though don't forget that a modded Skyrim LE looks (and plays better) than a vanilla Skyrim SE. On the other hand the number

of mods for the LE can be overwhelming and the amount of instructions, add-on's, compatebility issues/patch, and other problems

can be ... taxing to keep check of.

So in the SE with less mods

 

As you might see these questions aren't simple to answer, at least not for me.

Feel free to share your thought on the matter with me/everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Post should be in the right forum, since I do talk and ask about Skyrim Mods.

If this should not be the right forum, kindly move it to the propper place and I apoligize for any inconviniences I have caused.

 

If something should be unclear, ask and I will try to answer.

 

Thank you for your time, paicentce and answers.

 

Highest regards to you all,

 

BlackRubyRaven

Edited by Guest
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I would definitely go for LE, actually, beside SE is supposed to be more stable (64 bits compared to the LE 32b), it brings no so much additional value. If you are concerned about graphics (not my case), SE basically consists of LE + 64 bits port + HD mods. So regarding your specs, you'll handle any LE textures impovements mods that will do the job.

About mods, I can't imagine playing playing Skyrim without them. Reach lvl 30, train blacksmith and the game is basically over, it's too easy. It's very subjective, but I have a solid list of absolute "mandatory mods" that I always install no matter what, to keep the game challenging and interesting and some of them will never be on SE. There are of course more and more mods becoming available on SE, but there will never have as much mods as LE.

The most popular mods are available for SE, but so many life-changing mods will never be. It all depends on what you plan to do with your game. You'l eventually browse the mod list be disapointed that those mods you want so bad are only available for LE.

Btw I would advise you to not mod wildly your game : de-installing too much mods can screw up your save, so choose your mods wisely, use multiple saves, and why not creating a mod-testing character only before using it on your main playthrough. Also, I recommand using MO instead of NMM, it keeps your Data folder untouched.

 

That being said do not take my words as absolute truth, I haven't really played SE and this is my subjective opinion. I've just started my 3rd character, and I've 1200+ hours of play on LE. Mods and immersive playstyle can make your game last forever without getting bored.

 

Edit : I didn't read all of your post and just noticed I repeated your thoughts for some parts

Edited by filosophem
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