Modding Has Ruined Skyrim.

[thenobody0]

I used to be in the same boat as you. I just couldn't get a stable set up going and it discouraged me so much I quit Skyrim for months. Experiencing a crash felt like getting slapped in the face and I was constantly on edge. I tried looking for other games to play but couldn't find much that compared to Skyrim. Then I started reading the S.T.E.P. and Skyrim Revisited guide and did a clean install, switched over to Mod Organizer, optimized my textures, cleaned all my mods with TES5Edit, checked and fixed errors with TES5Edit, made compatibility patches and started a new game. It took me a week to do all that. I'm now able to solve most problems and mod conflicts myself and my Skyrim is finally stable enough to play without worrying. I still get the occasional CTD but I think that's inevitable on a heavily modded game. The engine has its limitations and even vanilla has given me CTDs before.

 

The most important things I've learned are to not uninstall mods if a save relies on it and that even updating a mod can be risky. Having said that, it's also not a good idea to use outdated mods. Especially not ones made before the release of the Creation Kit or TES5Edit. If you see a mod you really want but is no longer being maintained make sure the description or comments state that it's stable.

 

I understand why you feel that modding has ruined Skyrim. Modding can be really frustrating but if you manage to get things running it's also very rewarding. I've really tweaked everything to my liking. Mods are probably the main reason most of us are still playing Skyrim. The game has been out for two years and there are so many quality mods now to keep us busy until the next Bethesda game comes out. I'm not sure how helpful this post was but I hope you'll be able to play Skyrim again.

Edited July 28, 2013 by thenobody0

[RS13]

 

I used to be in the same boat as you. I just couldn't get a stable set up going and it discouraged me so much I quit Skyrim for months. Experiencing a crash felt like getting slapped in the face and I was constantly on edge. . . .

I understand why you feel that modding has ruined Skyrim.

 

Thank you. I didn't post here because I wanted help. While I appreciate the help--I really do!--I mostly just wanted to vent and get some commiseration from fellow modders.

 

I may switch over to MO. That's about the only thing suggested here that I haven't tried. But then again, I may just go play Oblivion.

 

Question: what mods don't work with MO? A few posts back someone said EBT doesn't work with it (one of my 53 D:), and I know another mod I was keen on installing won't work, but I don't know which one.

Edited July 27, 2013 by RS13

[thenobody0]

So far I haven't encountered any mod that doesn't work with Mod Organizer. Sometimes it has a bit of trouble installing mods that have fomod installers but you can turn on the integrated fomod installer under Settings and that usually solves the problem.

Edited July 28, 2013 by thenobody0

[wolferz]

Wow... reading back, gotta say I feel a lot of sympathy for RS13. To be blunt... a lot of people are responding in ways that make it very, very, VERY clear they haven't paid any attention to what RS13 has said. This is a major pet peeve of mine. If you can't respond without doing this, you should never offer any one advice to begin with. You can't possibly expect to solve some one's problems when you wont even take the time to find out what that problem is. As a professional computer tech for over 15 years... I've lost track of how much "help" I've had to fix as a result of this. RS13 seems to be knowledgeable enough to spot it. Unfortunately, most aren't.

Regardless, yeah, I get where you are coming from RS13. I've just spent the last 2 weeks painstakingly modding Skyrim from scratch after a ~year hiatus. I had deleted my previous mods when trying to salvage my data from a hard drive failure and I was lacking a drive large enough to store everything... deleting 30 gigs of mods for a game i wasn't playing seemed like a good idea at the time. Regardless, after two weeks dickering about with mods I hadn't even played all the way to Riverwood yet till just today.

With over 400 modifications (not all of them including esp/esm files) of one sort or another it goes without saying I've run into quite a number of problems along the way... not the least of which is the dreaded 3.1 gig limit. The last 2 days alone were spent downgrading the quality on several texture/mesh replacer mods and then going back through an painstakingly using DDSopt to drop most normal maps to 1/2 the associated color map's size and optimizing away any problems. I've also had to apply fixes to seams on custom body mods (in Gimp... texblend seems to butcher the textures when i load them), create custom patches using the CK and TES5Edit to make some mods play nice together, endless hours of research on compatibility, engine features, or even just which mods would be fun to use... it's a massive undertaking.

And on that note I would like to send a shout out to the dev of Mod Organizer... I'd be curled up fetal in a dark place and crying for my mommy if not for MO. Dude... you rock.

 

So now my Skyrim is back more or less as it was before. Terrifyingly modded and at least as stable as Skyrim is without any mods at all (which isn't very). Thus, I must disagree with your conclusions regarding the impossibility of heavily modding Skyrim and it still being stable enough to play but well... as they say, "Opinions are like assholes..." we all have a few... er... or something like that. :-)

 

I understand that you've more or less given up. I'm sorry to hear that. The fact that my game is now stable with the absolute mountains of mods I am running proves that it can be done. But of course it's your choice whether to continue or not. Out of respect for that I won't share my thoughts on what might be causing your problems (and I do have a few others haven't mentioned). For now I'll settle for whole heartily agreeing with you that the state of modding in Skyrim, amazing as the game is and amazing as the community is, leaves much to be desired. I hope, in time, you'll come back to Skyrim or whatever subtitle is carried by TES VI and things will work out better for you.

Edited July 28, 2013 by wolferz

[RS13]

Thanks wolferz; I appreciate your concern and share that particular pet peeve.

 

I don't doubt that Skyrim can be made (relatively) stable with more mods than I have--and that makes my inability to get it stable all the more frustrating.

 

I'll definitely come back to Skyrim, but I may need to take a break and play some other game. Getting it modded and stable is just such an arduous process that I get exhausted even thinking about trying it again. Anyways, MO keeps coming up so I may make one last hail mary in that direction. IDK. We'll see.

[H8Cr1me]

HAHAHAHA

When Skyrim was coming out I thought to myself that after so much of my life was wasted modding Oblivion, I wanted to hurry up and play through the game before the Creation Kit and all the mods started coming out because I knew as soon as I started browsing through mods I'd wind up in modding purgatory. I tried fighting the urge to look at the Nexus but the temptation was just too strong.

Hundreds of hours spent with Oblivion and Skyrim, and I've yet to get anywhere near the end of either.

[Nudedragon]

*disclaimer* please mod your game responsibly.

[livnthedream]

Did you fix Razorplate in the ck? Its currently broken with out of order subrecords. Also, according to your boss printout cleaning and bashing your mods will do you a world of good.

[calfurius]

Bro seriously, your skyrim game is borked. The only option left is to do a clean install of skyrim, and delete all of your saves (forget your characters, those saves are corrupted now.) You'll have to stay all the way over, that's the only option left.

[Shadeybladey]

To be blunt... a lot of people are responding in ways that make it very, very, VERY clear they haven't paid any attention to what RS13 has said.

 

It's quite clear he has an incompatible mod list and refuses to change it.