new to Skyrim, how to start and which mods to get?

[Xilliana]

hello,

 

i am very new to this game, i have never played it before and i dont know anything about it. is it like dragon age? cause i love that game, does it have alot of story in it?

 

few months ago i played dragon age 1&2 on pc for the first time and i was very amazed by how wonderful it looks with all those mods i got from here !!

 

so im wondering, does skyrim also require alot of mods to look improved and nice? what are the top mods to get, in everything.

 

i would love to have nice looking characters and costumes as well.

 

and also, i would like to have some mods that would give me super powers and strength ( i suffered with the final boss in dragon age origin only to find out that there was a mod that makes you kill enemies in a second >< ) so i would love to be very strong in this game.

 

i dont know what the game has to offer so just guide me through it please and tell me about the best mods to get :)

 

also, is there a romance in it just like dragon age?

[Jeir]

Erm...sorry, but TES games are nothing like DA. DA is story based, while Skyrim is action-based; the closest you'll get to DA in the TES series probably comes from older games like Morrowind.

 

Vanilla Skyrim looks fine, but like always in TES games, improvements are needed depending on your view. I would suggest playing vanilla for a while, to both see what it's like, and also to see what you would like to change. For top mods, look at the most endorsed mods of all time on Nexus, and also at Skyrim GEMS.

 

My recommendations:

Female: CBBE Slim or Slim-based BodySlide body. Default textures, or default with SG Female face textures.

Male: Better Males, Sundracon meshes. Subtle Male Skeleton. Smooth Males. Fine Male Face Textures.

Both: Natural Eyes. Apachii SkyHair. SLF Hairs. Ethereal Elven Overhaul. Enhanced Character Edit. CoverKhajiits.

Kids: XVision Children.

Environment: Flora Overhaul. WATER. Skyrim 2K. SMIM. Climates of Tamriel. Sounds of Skyrim: Wilds, Dungeons, Civilisation.

Patches/Fixes: Unofficial Patches: Skyrim, Dawnguard, Hearthfire, Dragonborn. Paarthurnax Dilemma. When Vampires Attack. Run For Your Lives. Even Better Quest Objectives. Project Optimisation. Grass on Steroids. Guard Dialogue Overhaul.

Quests: Falskaar, Wyrmstooth, Helgen Reborn, Much Ado About Snow Elves, Golden Egg Treasure Hunt.

Utilities: BOSS. Wrye Bash. TES5Edit. SKSE.

Other: Convenient Horses. Amazing Follower Tweaks. Dragon Combat Overhaul. Skyrim Sewers. Harvest Overhaul. SkyUI. Moonlight Tales. Auto Unequip Ammo.

 

Unfortunately, there is no romance in Skyrim. Romance = "Hi, I have a shiny amulet and helped you on the farm some time ago and our total conversation time is about 20 seconds...wanna get married?" "Sure, let's go!". Yeah, that's about it. Do something to help an NPC, get an amulet, you can get married to them. There are a few mods that give more in-depth NPCs, but they tend to be catered to the male players of Skyrim (and ladies who also like ladies). In other words, almost all of them are pretty female characters.

[Shadeybladey]

If you use a Keyboard and Mouse, I would strongly recommend SkyUI.

 

Also, the USKP unofficial patch before you start, plus the UPs for any DLC you are using.

 

Other pretty essential "bug fix" mods include:

"The Paarthurnax Dilemma"

"Run For Your Lives"

"When Vampires Attack" if you have Dawnguard.

 

I would also recommend Atlas Map Markers.

 

After that, it's a good idea to start playing mainly "Vanilla" until you get a feel for what the game is like. These are my absolute minimum mods (plus Categorized Favorites Menu and some map improvers, plus my own mods).

 

 

Then there are smithing and crafting overhauls, skill tree overhauls, all sorts of graphics and texture overhauls and realism, survivalist and immersion things like Frostfall, Wet and Cold, Footprints, Real Needs and Diseases, SkyTEST etc.

 

But it's hard to say without knowing your play style and preferences. I have never seen Dragon Age.

 

But it's probably best to start with a fairly minimal selection at first and see what the game is like. Then you'll appreciate the mods more.

 

 

~.~

[Sucrilhus]

For graphics, I would suggest you to follow the suggestions of this modder:

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30936//?

 

Notice that at the description he/she passes several suggestions of mods to download.

 

I had a few disagreements with his suggestions (since graphics is a completely subjective thing, it's almost impossible for the entire guide be spot-on to our tastes) but it gave me a really clear "path" to follow. And best of all, the guide explains the exact load order you have to put, so it's newbie-safe.... you'll be able to install several graphical mods without worrying too much if your skyrim will go unstable.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Sucrilhus

[Deleted31005User]

And I would suggest to get as few mods as possible if you want to maintain a stable skyrim, mods with loads of scripts in them should be avoided, and only install one mod at a time and test it thoroughly in game before deciding to keep it.

Also always make a backup save BEFORE you install a mod so you can go back to that save in case you want to uninstall that mod, because just uninstalling mods and playing on with your current game give you corrupted games.

[Xilliana]

thanks all for helping, I just started the game and it looks really good! but i do want mods cause i saw a lot of nice ones here !

 

i want to create a nice looking character with beautiful armor and clothing ! i want strong weapons and just max everything, since it's not so much story based i dont want to have to spend so much time in trying to get strong or have a lot of money and stuff, i just want everything to be there! so i guess that would require cheats?

 

also, very important, i dont like the first person camera, i read that i can change it to third person view with clicking F. but that didnt work! im at the very beginning of the game.

 

and no i really dont wanna use a keybaord, it's ok to use a mouse if it would be easy to control, just like dragon age was, if not, how can i use the ps3 controller?

 

thanks.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Xilliana

[buffmaloney]

One thing that should have been asked is what are your system specs? If you download a bunch of mods, your system needs to be able to handle it. Pressing ~ when in the game and then entering TGM enables God Mode.

[SoloveyIS]

Apologize in advance for English errors.

 

l For stylish character costomisation, the base is which bodytype to use.

 

1) For females (with mostly skimpy armor sugestions). They apply for everysingle female of your game:

 

-UNP: realistic looking imo.

Brokefoots UNP Mashup Compilation by brokefoot. Includes multiples pieces of clothing which is great for costomisation of the overhaul looking.

 

-UNP SevenBase: boobies alert. I personaly dislike the size of the thights, otherwise, would be my preferance.

SevenBase Conversions - Bombshell/Cleavage with BBP on another website, will be the first link if you Google it.

Shockero also uploaded several armors on Nexus.

This needs XP32 Maximum Skeleton -XPMS by xp32

 

-UNPC by Halofarm: realistic, slightly bigger QQ .. can be found in his webpage. I realy liked this one, the Aurora Follower by VRDaphni and Shadowfake for instance use it. You can download, its standalone and c how it looks.

 

-Calientes Female Body Mod Big Bottom Edition -CBBE- by Caliente: most popular i belive. My preferance using

Bodyslide CB Plus Plus - Extra Sliders for CBBE and Outfits by stuffed_bunny - ChronoTrigger77 - ousnius.

What this mean is you can set everysingle parts of the female body to your taste. Comes with various sets of armors, from Remodeled Armor for CBBE Bodyslide and BBP by ChronoTrigger77 and Killer Keos Skimpy CBBE V2-V3 Armor Replacer by by Killer Keo. Theres also bikinis ect.

 

-Adec: unkowned to me, i think its "anormous breast" special main feature.

 

1.1) Body skin retex

-CBBE skin texture V2 V3 plus Thepal and UNP compatible by navetsea

-Mature skin texture and body for UNP CBBE ADEC by Maevan2

 

1.2) Musclar body or only abs + wetness effect

-Sporty Sexy Map - Athletic muscle mod CBBE UNP UNPB ADEC by Xs2reality

-Fitness Body by Svarog. Thats only abs, different size.

-Sporty Sexy Sweat - wet body skin texture - CBBE UNP UNPB ADEC Vanilla by Xs2reality

 

1.3) Face retex

-All in One Face for Dawnguard Vampire and Vanilla Races - UNP - CBBEv3 - Vanilla by r3320ca

-Or from "body skin retex" mods depending on how poeple want to mix mods.

 

1.4) Face enhancement

-Better Females by Bella by BellaGail. Got a downlaod option just to get finer Brown, whitout better make up or textures.

-Better Females By Bella Natural Edition by zzjay

-Coverwomen by mrLenski

-The Eyes Of Beauty by Gabriel Mailhot

-Or just doubling the size of the lashes HN66s Long Eye Lashes by humannature66

 

2) Males.

Like previously said by Jeir, better male etc.

See how male section is detailed...

 

3) Extra, armors & weapons.

Winter Is Coming - Cloaks by Nivea. Great looking imersives claoks.

Weapons from Nicoroshi, he got some of them with a white glow optional addon i find pretty cool, great design also.

 

ll No cheats needed realy, at first i was like that, max out everything then realised thats its pretty easy to become overpowered which totaly ruined my fun.

Ill plan to use several mods to increase difficulty and therefre make the combats more realistic.

 

1) Duel - Combat Realism by Gabriel Mailhot as LogRaam

-Planning on using 5.1.2 so i can combine it with another AI improvement mod, also that its lighted scripted, the less script, the better for stability since this game can break easely.

-It makes the enemies behave more realisticaly like they look for you for hours if you performed an attack in sneak mode. And few more things..

 

1.1) Or Deadly Combat by Borgut1337

-Heavy script. optimized? i havnt checked.

-Makes NPC having different behaviour when attacking or being attacked. Felt like its the most advance combat mode. Have MCM support which mean you can configurate a lot of things with it, for exemple: DPS in/output etc.

Only problem that did bother was a bug that could show improper numbers when checking the damages of the weapons. thats a minor thing, but sadly, im a perfectionist, and couldnt alow myself to not being able to corectly check DPS of weapons.

 

2) Enemy AI OverHaul---Revenge Of the Enemies---No Scripts Version by MyEvergreenHometown, im using V1.12 for no extra npc addons that exist in 1.51

-No script

-Most enemies have their own skills now, such as Invisibility of Falmer,Bat Form of Vampire,Artillery of Dwarven Sphere and so on.. I saw a vid on this, fanishing falmer's what conviced me mostly lol, but you see comments of other folks regarding fighting vampire lord and truely having hard times.

 

3) Combat Damage Multiplier by Ixiguis or other mods im still unsure about this. But vanilla skyrim fights takes to long imo. 2-3 shots and anything should die but thats just me.

 

Spoiler alert! Well i didnt at first i was gona fight dragon when i bought the game!

4) Enhanced Mighty Dragons by Erkeil, its on his own website, easy find from Google.

-No scripts

-multiples lvls of difficulty thats up to you. I havnt tested it yet but i got nightmare lvl which is the highest. In vanilla, its way to easy to kill them, your like "oh hey free bones and soul" like Gopher said in one of his vids lulz. So extra HP and imnotsurewhatelse is great to make it toughter.

Not using the optional files there is to it in the archive. for exemple dragon preist tweaks that might be incompatible with AI overhaul. tho using extended spwaning timer x2.

 

Sidenote.

Well if your new to skyrim, Gopher's videos are the ones i realy recomend you to watch them to get a better idea of how to mod your game and what other programs to use and so on. Hes also explaning how to intal an ENB, which greatly enhance how the game looks.

 

4.1) Or Deadly Dragons by 3JIou which is by far the most Advanced dragon mod youll ever find. I used on my first playtrought and realy liked it. They get way tougther, use magic, for exemple a kind of reflect ranged attack if you hit them.

So that's a good choice if you are more into PvE fun, like you explained in your post related to Dragon Age.

 

lll Graphics, texture improvement, meshe etc

-RealVision ENB by SkyrimTuner. No more to be said. His mod page is incredibly well detailled, almost everyday update, a real machine.

But keep in my that to many textures mod (use mostly 2k) can cause infinite loading screen.

-Might check EWIs Enhanced HD Ice Textures by ewi65 and the other he made.

 

lV Imersion.

Some being already mentions in previous posts:

Frostfall, Wet an cold, splash of rains, realistic needs and deseave..? (sry English!) footprints, convinient horses and so on. I originaly planned on using some of them but they all adding scripts. So i atleast kept frootprints..

 

V Houses

-Dorn Heven by dignityBlade im using V0.80 . Best house mod ive seen, description is in german which explains the low number of endorsments and download.

-Rayeks End - Mini Hideout by Rayek is a realy smal sort of cave that got all you need.

Spoiler alert:

-Shezrie's Breezehome, currently in steamworkshop. Clutter everywhere, check out Mods of Skyrim : Shezrie's Breezehome! by Chayification on youtube, hilarious.

 

Vl Programmes related to stability and more.

-BOSS will prevent CTDs if load order is incorect. Thats a must.

-Ewis High ini and prefs files for GTX 660 or better by ewi65 is an ini tweak that increase stability if you got a good computer. Use only Ugrids 5, 7 gives unstability overtime with saves.

-TESVedit can clean up mods from dirty edits. Thats optional, i use it, you may Watch Gopher's vidoe for deep explanation of what it is and how to deal with it.

-Skyrim performance monitor, check your FPS, GUP GPU etc, handy for testing, i mostly use it to check FPS..

-Mod Organizer, work as Nexus mod manager exept it uses... how to say it, its just doesnt break the game when you instal mods for you wouldnt have to redownload the game if you broke it. You may use a different set of mod and switch the sets as will. I havnt fully figured out how to use it due to restricted playing time put seems usefull.

-Wrye Bash, fix compatibility between conflicting mods. Same as MO, no time to check how it work

-ASIS, now from what i understood, it makes monsters use the modded spell you wouldv added to the game. Thats the most i know of it lol sry.

 

Eh... i guess i felt like writting today.. Surely said more than what needed to be said, cutting this here, cant spend full morning! hope that helped, now going to murder poeples with supressed M16A3 in bf3! (yes, you all care!)

Vive la France!

Peace.

 

Solovey.

Edited November 1, 2013 by SoloveyIS

[Xilliana]

wow thank you so much guys!! I will definitely come back to this topic and check your posts when gettings mods!

 

and can someone please answer this:

 

also, very important, i dont like the first person camera, i read that i can change it to third person view with clicking F. but that didnt work! im at the very beginning of the game.

and no i really dont wanna use a keybaord, it's ok to use a mouse if it would be easy to control, just like dragon age was, if not, how can i use the ps3 controller?

Edited November 5, 2013 by Xilliana

[Arimikami]

If you mean you're right at the very beginning, as in, you haven't even gotten away from the Dragon and escaped the dungeon of Helgen, you won't be able to go into third person view until after you're inside the dungeon and the bindings on your hands are cut. If you've already done that, then I would suggest making sure your controls are mapped properly. I don't use a controller but, I'm pretty sure the game does offer support for it.