Oh the pain of testing mods!

[anjenthedog]

Whatever floats your boat, LilRedMonster. Different strokes for different objectives, since you just spent two posts speaking to me and denigrating a proven engineering method of reducing degrees of freedom in an effort, not advising the OP.

Personally, I haven't seen a collection I'd want to play under, or said another way, I don't want to play *your* game, or Sarah's game, or Roberto's game. I want to create *my* game. I presume, to some degree, that's what the OP wants as well. 

Even those who create collections have to do some sensible stuff to create the collections. It doesn't just magically happen on its own.

[InDarkestNight]

I did actually use to have a load order I used all the time. Skytest Realistic Animals and Predators, Frostfall, Ineed, my various graphics mods I use every single game, and my bird mods. I only quit using this because I got tired of it holding me back. Skytest was holding me back from testing out other creature mods because its changes don't carry over to mod-added animals even with the integration patches. Keep in mind, last time I used it regularly your only options were the giant compilations. Mihail was the only person releasing individual creature mods. After testing out different creature mods, I've since come to the conclusion that I don't really want extra creatures in my game; I want more interesting combat. I've been doing research into that, though I have yet to actually test anything and I'm not currently planning on doing so.

That said, I agree its better to overlap. As I said, what harm can there be in installing multiple quest mods at once? Its not like they're going to conflict with each other, or you're going to be doing them all at the same time. I also don't really see how testing multiple creature mods together is bad. The three I had don't overlap. One overhauls dragons, the other all other creatures, and the third is technically a dungeon mod with its own leveled lists.

Right now I'm planning on doing the multiple quest mods thing (which I was planning on doing after I got used to the creature mods btw) just so I can enjoy the game again. I was also thinking of installing Path of Sorcery or Undeath Classical Lichdom and doing a necromancer playthrough. That wouldn't help me in the long run though, even though I've long wanted to try those mods too.

[LilRedMonster]

 

On 2/3/2024 at 8:23 AM, anjenthedog said:

Whatever floats your boat, LilRedMonster. Different strokes for different objectives, since you just spent two posts speaking to me and denigrating a proven engineering method of reducing degrees of freedom in an effort, not advising the OP.

Personally, I haven't seen a collection I'd want to play under, or said another way, I don't want to play *your* game, or Sarah's game, or Roberto's game. I want to create *my* game. I presume, to some degree, that's what the OP wants as well. 

Even those who create collections have to do some sensible stuff to create the collections. It doesn't just magically happen on its own.

Fair, and I apologize if I come off as denigrating or anything of the like. 

The point I wanted to make was that if the content of a mod is what you mean to test, rather than compatibility with your existing modlist, then trying a large pre-made modlist enables you to try lots and lots at the same time rather than having to go through the tedious install, boot up, try, quit, uninstall, install another cycle of trying one at a time.

[scorrp10]

Best way to test mods is to learn how to MAKE mods - that is, at least learn the mod tools.    You can then load a mod in CK or XEdit and just look at all the extras it adds.    You can go into meshes section of a mod and examine the models it includes with NifScope.  

Doing a playthrough to try out a mod?    You can use console commands to change your level, skills, perks, spells, etc.    Or can write a script that will read a .json file and set your character up as needed, in seconds.    Can even mark certain quests/quest lines as complete,  change certain NPC dispositions, and so on.    

Grinding enchanting?    player.setav enchanting 100

Not enough gold to buy that player house you want to review?    player.additem f 100000   

Reviewing some armor mod?   use AddItem or its variant to just spawn in the needed items. 

Nobody in their right mind 'grinds it out'.   

 

 

[InDarkestNight]

I do know how to do all that. I did learn how to make mods by playing with them after all. In fact, most of the conflicts I find is through either console commands or looking at the mod's data. For instance, I discovered that Elemental Dragons, SiC and Skyrim Underground all add in their own take on Daedroths after I searched for 'daedroth' in the console to check out a replacer I had just installed. The replacer didn't affect all three btw.  Console commands cant test everything though. How can you know how difficult an enemy is? I had no idea SiC or Skyrim Underground were so hard until I tried to actually play with the mods without messing their spawns. How can you look up anything about a quest mod without looking up spoilers? I never ever look up anything about quest mods, outside of maybe a youtube review. And no, you can't set your level through console commands. You can change your skill ranks, but this doesn't give you levels or perk points. The only way to do it is to use some command to increment a specific skill, one point at a time. Obviously, its a slow process. Obviously, I've never done it, in fact I can't even remember the command for it. As for houses, most of them require you to complete quests to buy them. Besides, why bother with that? With house mods you can easily just teleport yourself into its interior cell with the coc command. Or you could just unlock the door with another console command.

Sometimes testing is just the only way, and I'm getting sick of it. As of right now, I've started another playthrough without the creature mods and am playing through various quest mods. Its going well so far. Biggest problem is that my character is barefoot because there's no mage boots in the games, at least none with a useful enchant to actually make them worth wearing. It has got me thinking about making a mod that adds in gloves and cloth boots with mage enchants on them. Of course, such is quite laborious. I once made a mod that adds in variants of all the vanilla gauntlets with the db backstab enchant on it. That was one just one enchant, and it took quite a while to make. Never done something like it again. Honestly, I mainly made it for another mod that changed the outfits of the DB members so it wasn't obvious that they were assassins, you know? Yeah, I've made quite a few mods. BIggest one really was a mod that took some of the models from Elemental Dragons and replaced some of the dragons added by Diverse Dragons Collection. I've never really felt much inclined to upload my mods though. Most of them are things that only take seconds, and the more interesting ones use assets that aren't mine. I only uploaded those few patches I did because people kept begging me to. Thinking about though, maybe I should upload that mod I made the fixes the Ragged Trousers when you have The Forgotten City installed. For some reason it re-textures the vanilla ragged trousers rather than adding its own variant. I fixed that of course, though I think some other people may appreciate it.

[anjenthedog]

11 hours ago, InDarkestNight said:

Biggest problem is that my character is barefoot because there's no mage boots in the games, at least none with a useful enchant to actually make them worth wearing.

None? None whatsoever? Muffle doesn't help you? Carry weight increases don't help you? Sneak improvement don't help you? various armor buffs don't help you? (contrary to popular belief, even mages need armor)

[InDarkestNight]

I've never seen enchanted shoes in my game (that wasn't armor anyway). Also, I rarely wear armor as a mage. Old habit from Oblivion I guess, where armor reduced your spell magnitude far too much. Yeah, its not necessary in Skyrim, but there is just too many robes with enchants that you can't replicate. Besides, I've found it hard to play as a mage without the enchants from robes. You just run out of magicka too fast when you have no regen and no cost reduction.

[NexBeth]

On 1/27/2024 at 1:53 AM, InDarkestNight said:

Now, I'm also questioning my graphics mods. I don't like experiencing a mod in a way that the mod author did not intend. Now, I'm thinking I need to remove my 100+ graphics and sound mods, and play only and only with the few I want to test (minus of course skyui and some stability mods). I'm also worried about leveled lists, because due to me switching to linux I have no way to merge them yet.

Well, I was delighted to hear this, particularly if you are considering this as a content creator reviewing other people's mod creations and posting reviews online.  It is impossible to adequately give a review of someone else's work when you've changed all of the textures of that creation.  I'm soon to publish a house mod and have taken steps to circumvent retexturing my mod.  I have no problem with their personal use to suit personal tastes and gaming experience, but if you are going to showcase someone else's work, then do that.  And not try to change it and show it to the world in an ultered state.  There are good reasons not to do that as well, other than just changing out textures.

What you are experiencing is pretty much what modders experience when they create and then test mods.  It is a good thing to be passionate, considerate and not just work for YT clicks.

[scorrp10]

I do not see an issue there.   If a mod creator makes use of vanilla textures, it is common knowledge that a lot of people use texture upgrade mods - which do not change the content of a texture, but change its quality, resolution, etc.    For all you know, the mod creator also uses texture upgrades.    It is just that specific texture usage can be very taxing on one's system, which is why, for example, skin texture mods often come in 2K, 4K and 8K variants.   

Quote

I'm soon to publish a house mod and have taken steps to circumvent retexturing my mod.

Like what?   If you are making use of meshes and textures that are, in fact, your own, people will not have anything to replace them with, so that is a moot point.   (See Karlov Manor/Aether Suite)

Othewise, you have to...

• Make copies of vanilla textures.
• In your .esp, create texture set forms pointed at those copies
• Make your own duplicates of world objects and make them use those texture sets
• Package those copies of vanilla textures with your mod.

And all for what?    To force drab, lower res vanilla textures on those who made the effort to upgrade the game's look?    To those, your house is going to look like crap.    Or, if you plan to include texture upgrades from some other mod, you would potentially be pushing higher res textures on those whose PC can't cope.    Not to mention, you cannot package vanilla assets in your mod.   And most world texture upgrade mod authors place similar restrictions on their assets.

 

[NexBeth]

It is really the mod creator's choice what to do.  However, the mods I have done so far, are very large house mods.  The lighting and the lighting templates work well with the texture that I've chosen, not necessarily the textures that someone else uses to change what I've done.  I build large open spaces and spend countless hours working on making lighting in Skyrim play nice.  No small task in large cells with many light sources.  But aside from that, as the OP pointed out, content creators trying to showcase someone's mod does well to consider respecting the creator's choices when they publish online.  

With few exceptions the replacement textures really don't look and don't always behave well in my mods (and I'm not the only MA who has this concern).  There is only one on Nexus that I would have no problem using in the project I'm currently working on because it looks good and behaves well with my mod.

If an artist creates a pastel painting, is it ok to recolor it with primary colors and advertise it online?  As I said, it is commendable that the OP is thinking about these things.