Popular Classic Mods vs Newer Underrated Mods

[crimson2018]

I was inspired to create a comprehensive list of popular mods that can be replaced today by newer and more updated and streamlined mods, that mostly achieve the same effect but are light-weight, cleaner and won't count towards the ESP plugin limit, being ESL Flagged in most cases.

1. Mostly old visual mods, that use of cloak spell to apply the visual effects and this method is controversial, since it can create save bloat (the save is bloated with references and script routines which accumulates over time and increase the file-size of your saves, to the point where the game engine cannot load it anymore). This has happened to me before in Oldrim, using several of the culprits below, but i quickly remedy the situation by removing the culprits, and i don't know how large could my save-files get before they break-up. These mods are also Oldrim mods, that had been poorly ported to SSE and are severely outdate if not abandoned altogether.

1A. Wet and Cold and Get Snowy. This has been replaced by R.A.S.S. - Rain Ash and Snow Shaders, which does 90% of what the two mods did and few things extra. It needs some tweaking as to disable the wet shader and replace it with an alternative. The only thing that WAC did extra was to have the NPCs automatically equip hoods during rain.

1B. Footprints. This has been replaced by SPID for Footprints, which also requires 2 extra fixes but they are still worth it. The original mod is still required, but it will be overwritten by by his SPID variant so no worries. The footprints will be now distributed via SPID method, instead of cloak spells. You need SPID, but that's a popular frameworks that it is required for many mods.

1C. Wonders of Weathers. This has been replaced by 3 light-weight mods, ESL Flagged, that together does the same thing: Splashes of Storm, Rainbows Redone and Shooting Stars.

1D. Crimson Tide. This was another famous culprit for save bloating in the Oldrim days, but it was quickly replaced by Enhanced Blood Textures which sticks strong to this day.

1E. Keep it Clean. While i don't think this uses cloak spells and it was properly ported to SSE, i prefer the jayserpa's light-weight alternative Dirt and Blood (without the extended addon, which will just level the mod with Keep it Clean). There is also Just Blood, a very light-weight alternative by the same mod author.

1F. No Snow Under the Roof aka NSUTR and Better Dynamic Snow aka BDS. These two old times have been replaced by Simplicity of Snow, which is newer and better.

2. These are Role-playing mods, that are very popular and have massive fanbases even today.  The people won't give up on these mods easily. There are also very heavy-scripted and unoptimized, and while they may not create save bloat, they could create script-lag, which you will certainly notice in game, as a delay on events update and interacting with activators. The upside is that these mods are usually used in short and very specific playthroughs, so people may not play enough game days to reach the point where the scrip-lag is very noticeable to annoying or they simply don't care.  These are generally survival mods, that overhaul base game mechanics or add new one, that severely changes the gameplay, to the point it overtake it ... meaning, you are not playing an action-adventure-rpg anymore, you are playing an hardcore-survival-rpg game with some very-light action-adventure elements running in the background. And this is fine, if this is what you aim at, but you also has to be aware that you negate 90% of the game features. The good thing is that there are plenty of light-weight and light to no scripted newer alternatives to these Oldrim Giants, that offers you enough survival mechanics, but it does so in a way that doesn't change drastically the gameplay and you can still experience the other features and mechanics of the game, so you don't have to trade-off.

2A. Frostfall. This is the biggest and most complex hypothermia mod. SunHelm, Frostbite, Survival Mode and few others are light-weight alternatives to this overhauled game mechanic.

2B. Campfire. This is the biggest camping mod for both Oldrim and SSE. Camping Light is a medium weight alternative and Campsite is a light-weight alternative (which i'm using it myself and is very functional). Also if you are using the Survival Mode, it comes with its own camping alternative features.

2C. Hunterborn. This is hands down the most featured hunting sim for Skyrim. But there is also Hunting in Skyrim by jayserpa, which is light-weight and even offers extra-features. If you are not just role-playing a hunter-character and want to do other things in your game (ex. your hunter want to grow up and become a Bounty Hunter or whatever), i recommend the later.

2D. Realistic Needs and Diseases and iNeed. These are two classics. SunHelm and Survival Mode offers light-weight needs mechanics and you can go as light-weight as Immersive Needs. This is one of the few cases where i prefer the classic one. I am iNeed user, i play with timescale to 10, to not be overtaken by the sleep / eat / drink needs, i like the iNeed widgets as opposed to easy to miss text warnings and i'm a heavy user of the follower need features (which i think there are unique to this mod). I also like and use the Dangerous Diseases Module from iNeed. This is of course a subjective choice. But i don't consider iNeed to be a heavy-weight mod as RND, but a medium-weight mod (and with the timescale set to 10 really not intrusive).

2E. Become a Bard. A new role-playing mechanic. Again the jayserpa's Skyrim Got Talent - Improve as a Bard, is a light-weight modern and unintrusive alternative (which is actually a motto for the mods of this author). You can use these two together along with College Reborn, for the ultimate Bard's experience, if that's what you are aiming at, but i think that will defeat the purpose of using jayserpa's mod.

2F. Alternate Start - Live another Life (with its addons and expansions). Alternate Perspective, realm of Lokhan and Skyrim Unbound are other alternatives, but ASLAL is the most popular of the bunch, and with its addons is the most extensive, immersive and has the best role-playing value. This said, i don't recommend using any of them in your role-playing. While they are indispensable for testing, you don't get a real benefit from using them in a lengthy playthrough (i just remove it before starting) and you could do without the patching. The thing about Role-Playing that most ppl are not considering is that even if the game and mods are offering you choices and possibilities, role-playing is a choice you make, ultimately ... and there is no game in existence that can role-play everything for you (not even Morrowind was like that). So you just make a bad-luck story why you were in Helgen at that time, get through the tutorial dungeon and you are on your way doing whatever you like role-playing wise. You do not need a mod (and its dozen patches) that only make a contribution once at the start for role-playing. I certainly don't need this since i'm always role-playing several characters at the same time on the same playthrough and the Dragonborn is always one of them.

3. Mods that deals with the AI.

3A. UFO was first, the most buggy but now is buried. AFT a heavy-weight follower-framework. NFF and EFF, two medium-weight follower-frameworks. The newest BFF (by Darkfox127) and a bunch of others light-weight and very light-weight follower frameworks. AFT is the most featured and has the heaviest script-load, it is slow and unresponsive, poorly optimized, i do not recommend it. NFF is a better alternative for the feature-creeps (but it only has 10 followers max). I myself use EFF because is the fastest and most responsive (because you can interact with followers via menus / wheel, the commands and trading are way faster than via dialogue and scrolling). I also like the Force Recruit feature and even if not usable, i like that you can recruit 100 followers if you want to. Right, so i will keep using this until some other framework implement the wheel, speed is most important and 90% of the NFF feature i don't need or i don't like (like spawning horses for followers out of nowhere). NFF is the most popular though.

3B. Convenient Horses a heavy-weight horse and mounting overhaul. Immersive Horses a medium-weight, balanced overhaul, which i'm using myself (also best for compatibility, newer and more updated and supported). And there are a bunch of light-weights as well. You could make do with ... Horse Whistle, Claim Your Horse, Name Your Horse plus a few console commands. I would avoid Convenient Horses if you are not planning to go into an hardcore horsing overhaul and horse breeds and whatever.

3C. Imerssive Citizens AI Overhaul aka ICAIO and Ai Overhaul aka AIO. ICAIO is older, incomplete (it only overhauls several NPCs, mostly in Whiterun area), but it is more compatible and the changes it make to the AI Packages are more impactful and noticeable. I used it myself and i had no problems with it, with OCS, Carriages mods or the NPC Overhauls. AI Overhaul is newer, it does a lot more AI Re-Packaging, and it conflicts with much more mods, hence it need massive patching. I never use the later, so i cannot say more. I'm currently not using any of them, as i consider there are not impactful enough and worth the hassle.

4. Open Cities Skyrim aka OCS. There is a newer alterative now SR Exterior Cities Series. I never use the later, so i cannot say which is objectively better, but i understand that it uses a new method and it has an easy patcher. I find it funny however that the people that strongly recommend it, never use neither of these two. For me OCS is the primary bugfix of Skyrim and it should had been included in the USSEP in the first place, just to avoid all the hassle and the 'compatibility nightmare'. While i never used OCS in Oldrim, i never played a SSE long-play or short-play nor i ever will without it. People that have very strong opinions against it, never really use it or know how to integrate in their mod lists, yet they are very opiniated against it. The immersion benefit is massive, you feel like you are part of the Tamriel World, which you are, not in a pocket-space with fake LODS, invisible walls, duplicated weather effects. It will also have no FPS drop on any modern systems with 8 GB+ VRAM (and for older systems is insignifiant 2-3 FPS, tested by myself on an old 4 GB VRAM nvidia card). It is not a 'compatibility nightmare', but it need a lots of patches which you can easily find ... since it only overhauls the 5 major cities, and not each square of landscape find in Skyrim (Northern Roads, Water for ENB, LUX, etc ... are much much harder to patch, and you can't never say that you are done, since it is impossible to test everything the changed just at eye-value). You can have a decent overhaul of the Major Five Cities, built around OCS, including JK's Skyrim / Dawn of Skyrim Combo, Capital Whiterun and Capital Windhelm Expansion (with their Open Cities variants), RedBag's Solitude Overhaul (which actually expand on the OCS Concept), SkyCity Markarth and whatever overhaul are you using for Riften if any. OCS also has support for Skyrim Sewers, Skyrim Underground, LOTD, Book Stores in Solitude and Markarth, Bells of Skyrim, Drinking Fountains of Skyrim, Immersive Laundry, Interesting NPCs, Missives, The Notice Board, JK's Interiors and a ton of other mods, that add stuff to the Five Cities space and can be easily patched. It the worst case scenario, you won't have something appearing in the OCS space, but only in the original space (which never happens in my mod list nowadays). OCS also has a very dedicated fanbase that makes this framework work with other mods. I doubt that SR Exterior Cities Series, will ever have this kind of support and fanbase, and then ... it is really worth it considering that it is doing the exact same thing? I don't know. I just wish ppl would give these frameworks a fair consideration and try, and i pretty sure they will never go back to the vanilla state ever, because that will only diminish their immersion and playing experience. PS. OCS conflicts (even if unresolved), will never crash your game, btw.

5. City overhauls. This is really very a subjective realms, but i never seen a better city overhaul than COTN Falkreath (i mean RedBag's Falkreath doesn't come even close). All the Cities of the Nord Series are amazing small town overhauls both interior / exterior, that really fit the world and culture. I strongly recommend that people try these. I usually like to mix and match these, to have a more diverse architecture instead of staring at the same models ... Rodryk's Dragon Bridge, Thuldor's Ivarstead, ClefJ's Morthal, COTN Dawnstar, TCON Winterhold, etc. The Capital Expansions for Whiterun and Windhelm are a must since they add entire quarters to these two cities and a bunch of quests as well, also RedBag's Solitude and the Blue Palace Overhauls because they are the best.

6. Blended Roads (+/- LUX Via) vs the Northern Roads (+/- LOS II). The last one is a nightmare to patch indeed, but it is also my favorite. It also adds new bridge meshes and a bunch of culturally fit landmarks, that it is really worth the effort of patching. I simply cannot look at those cobblestones anymore (flat, blended or really blended), sorry i just can't. I also prefer LOS II and their medieval lanterns models to LUX Via ... these two will require the same amount of patches anyway.

7. Enhanced Light and FX (+ ELFX Shadows) vs LUX. I like ELFX here, lightning and ambiance. I would give LUX a try, if it will not be such a nightmare to patch and such a CTD magnet. IMO ... it is not worth it, especially since i'm quite happy with how ELFX looks anyway.

8. Weather Mods and ENB. These are purely subjective. I use Cathedral Weathers and Season (i like raining, these has the highest rain chance of all) with Rudy ENB, but i would give Cabbage ENB a chance to see how ith look with Cathedral. Obsidian Weathers by the same author is the most popular weather mod to date.

9. Embers HD vs Embers XD. Few people still prefer Embers HD, but the XD is superior in every way, supported and most compatible nowadays.

10. User Interface and Camera mods.

10A. iActivate was superseded by Simple Activate SKSE.

10B. First Person View was superseded by Improved Camera, since it was ported to SSE.

10C. FaceLight and FaceLight Plus, were superseded by Better Face Light and Conversation.

10D. Alternate Conversation Camera has been upgraded to Alterntate Conversation Camera Plus and Immersive Alternate Conversation Camera. Ironically only Alternate Conversation Camera will work with GOG 1.6.1179, the newer ones don't support the last version of GOG.

10E. SkyUI and RaceMenu. Unreplaceable unfortunately, people don't even try to do it. I am not a big fan of SkyUI, but it is a major improvement over the vanilla UI. Since Morrowind we don't have an organic inventory anymore, just a List of Items and numbers that break the immersion, imo. This is the way it is.

11F. A Quality World Map. While this is still a good mod and a classic, also light-weight, Flat World Map Framework, with its paper maps addons, it is more immersive choice and doesn't have the bugs of the old papers maps mods.

11. Physics and Anmimation Frameworks

11A. FINS is the definition of obsolete. Nemesis is faster and better (it doesn't have creature animations however, a very small niche). Nemesis also create a dummy plugin FNIS.esp, to assure backwards compatibility with older animation mods solely dependent on FNIS, which i don't have in my mod list anyway. Pandora is a new behavior and animation engine that in works, even in an alpha release, that is supposed to be better than Nemesis and also including the creature animations. At this point i think that Nemesis is still the better and most stable / compatible option here.

11B. Dynamic Animations Replacer vs Open Animation Replacer. DAR is a no permissions and closed source, while OAR is open source and a more powerful tool for distributing animation dynamically in game, but it has to be used with Animation Que Fix, to eliminate T-Pose with heavy animation loads.

11C. HDT-SMP - Skinned Mesh Physics has been replaced by Faster HDT-SMP. The later is faster and more updated.

11D. Combat Gameplay Overhaul aka CGO and PC Headtracking have been replaced by True Directional Movement. You can still use PCHT, for the voice types, but turn off in the MCM the PC Head Tracking feature.

11E. Belt-Fastened Quivers. This is no longer needed since it is included in the XPMSSE if you use that mod. Same with Modern Brawl Bug Patch which is included in Enhanced Blood Textures aka EBT, which everyone uses.

12. UNP vs CBBE (+/- 3BA or CBBB). While i used UNP in Oldrim, today CBBE and 3BA are better, more physics friendy and have superior bodyslide support and armor / clothing support in general. 

13. All Geared Up and All Gear Up Derivative aka ALLGUD were superseded by Immersive Equipment Display aka IED. This is for showing your favorite equipment on your character and a bunch of other stuff like musical instruments, coin pouches, potions etc, which will greatly increase immersion. It is also a hard requirement for other mods like Bounties Redone or Carry your Carcasses. Good stuff.

14. Inconsequential NPCs. Finally ported to SSE, a mod that adds a bunch of NPCs just for kicks. The Skyrim's Engine has great difficulty handling the Radiant AI as it is. What is the point of adding a bunch of other NPCs who don't do anything, just for decoration. The People of Skyrim in the same style. Better use Interesting NPCs and Citizens and Tamriel, these two mods do the same thing as the above mods, but the NPCs came with plenty of functionality, superb and unique voice-acting (much needed diversity) and a bunch of questlines (in 3DNPC's case). So they are really worth the strain on game's resources.

15. NPCs Overhaul. Another very subjective topic. I just made to point out a very underrated mod that overhauls the female NPCs, A Rose in the Snow aka ARIS. This is the best overhaul in my opinion even if it doesn't use High Poly Head. Kalilies NPCs is a close second, but it goes over a different approach.

16. Vortex vs Mod Organizer 2. This is the easiest choice ever.

Edited August 16 by crimson2018

[Karna5]

4 hours ago, crimson2018 said:

11C. HDT-SMP - Skinned Mesh Physics has been replaced by Faster HDT-SMP. The later is faster and more updated.

That's an interesting list. Thanks for sharing it, crimson2018. I must ask, though, did FSMP actually replace HDT-SMP? It's my understanding that HDT-SMP is for Skyrim SE users, and FSMP is for Skyrim AE users.

[drsemmel]

11A. Nemesis can be made to work alongside FNIS (if someone needs it that bad), but its kind of a hassle tbh.

1 hour ago, Karna5 said:

It's my understanding that HDT-SMP is for Skyrim SE users, and FSMP is for Skyrim AE users.

Nope, FSMP superseded HDT-SMP and is usable with 1.5.97 (I am on backported) - I guess it needs BEES though.

[7531Leonidas]

Just like you and the cobblestones, I can no longer bear to ride in the cart at game start.  This is why I run ASLAL.  I used Interesting NPCs for a while, got rid of it for my current playthrough, as many of its side quests (and characters) seem to be quirky at the very least, and can be a compatibility nightmare when running many mods (over 1500 for me).

Most of the NPC overhauls have a common flaw for me - although the authors obviously worked very hard on them, most of them have faces/features that are too similar, and my pet peeve with many of them are that they 'normalize' the races to some extent, where I really can't tell if a particular NPC is a Redguard (skin lightened), or which type of Elf is in front of me (again, skin tones are lightened or too similar to each other), or am I looking at a Breton w/elf ears. 

[crimson2018]

30 minutes ago, 7531Leonidas said:

Just like you and the cobblestones, I can no longer bear to ride in the cart at game start.  This is why I run ASLAL.  I used Interesting NPCs for a while, got rid of it for my current playthrough, as many of its side quests (and characters) seem to be quirky at the very least, and can be a compatibility nightmare when running many mods (over 1500 for me).

Most of the NPC overhauls have a common flaw for me - although the authors obviously worked very hard on them, most of them have faces/features that are too similar, and my pet peeve with many of them are that they 'normalize' the races to some extent, where I really can't tell if a particular NPC is a Redguard (skin lightened), or which type of Elf is in front of me (again, skin tones are lightened or too similar to each other), or am I looking at a Breton w/elf ears. 

About Interesting NPCs ... the NCPs are really not vanilla material, some are annoying as hell, some are hilarious, depressed, cowardly, paranoic, they all have an obsession or a personal quest of some kind, they certainly are a strange bunch. A single NPC will have more dialogue than all the NPCs from an entire vanilla village / town. They add an interesting variation to the game and a lot of dialogue content. But where the mod shines is at questing, very interesting quests and questlines that usually involve one or more to even 5-6 iNPCs and a lot of morally grey-choices that don't feel more more than 50%-50% or 60%-40% right or wrong, no matter your character's morality. I didn't found quest concepts like that in the Vanilla Skyrim, where everything is either right or wrong (perhaps with the exception of the Civil War) and neither in the many quest mods i've tried, except for Vigilant, maybe.

With the NPCs Overhauls there is always that, since the mod author will only duplicate the face parts and start tweaking from there, there are usually the same characters assets that are being used and there are many characters to overhaul.  One of the reasons i like ARIS is because it offers the best variety that i have seen in an NPC Overhaul, but also for the realistic-rough, but without making the characters look unattractive at the same time.  There are still a lot of repeats and and characters i just don't like or have really ugly hairstyle. But ARIS will certainly contribute to at least 50% of the female npcs in game. There are plenty other overhauls where you can mix and match, an this is the only way you will get the variety you like. The safest way to do this is to just select in each mod the NPCs you like and delete the rest (and their, eyes / brows and hair assets) and save your modified plugins. You do this in SSEEdit since it is the easiest, also check your saved plugins for errors. And you repeat the process to all plugins you want and when you are done, you just merge all the plugins into one. This is guarantee to give you a stable NPC Overhaul and no black faces. My last merge was with 27 plugins (19 for Females and 8 for Males). There is also the EasyNPCs method, but as far as i know that tool don't work for GOG.