The necessity of Anniversary Edition

[Savela]

Hi, I am playing with the thought of modding (and maybe even playing!) Skyrim again. I own the Special edition (Which apparently uses the Anniversary Edition game version?!) but not the Anniversary Upgrade. I read a guide that requires the upgrade and now I'm wondering how necessary that really is.

Originally I wanted to make a regular post, but making a poll seems super fun, I hope this works!

[showler]

Two answers:  The answer to your question is that it's not necessary and you may just have to pick and choose versions of the mods as appropriate.

Alternate answer, however, is that it MIGHT be necessary for that particular guide if you intend to follow it.

[scorrp10]

"Anniversary Edition" is just a bundle.   It includes the latest version of Special Edition + 4 OK CC mods  (which you already got),  AND the Anniversary Pack which is a bunch of rather second-rate CC mods.   I'd even argue that you are worse off with AE pack cause it uses up plugin slots that could be put to much better use. 

[LunaticNM]

I'd say it depends on if with "Anniversary Edition" you mean the 10€ Upgrade, or just the basic 1.6 game-update that most people tend to call "Anniversary Edition".

 

If the former (which i assume), no, you usually don't. Most Collections i've seen either explicitly say if they need it, or they have all mods & Patches that require the Anniversary-Content marked as Optional, so you could choose yourself during installation.

If the latter, it depends on your modlist or "wishlist". Nowadays, i'd say about 99% of mods are available for the latest version, and there are only some minor ones that aren't. if your modlist does contain one of those few, you might want to downgrade your game.

 

I personally run a ~600 Custom modlist on the latest 1170 with the 10€ Upgrade, since that 10€ spared me a lot of searching for old mod-versions through archives, since like i said, almost every mod is already up to date.

Edited Tuesday at 08:01 AM by LunaticNM

[Savela]

Very interesting to see so varied answers!

To be clear: I'm running Skyrim version 1.6.1170.0 but do not own the 19,99€ "Skyrim Anniversary Upgrade"

[LunaticNM]

It's 20€? Interesting, might've gotten it on a sale then, my bad.

But yea, i'd personally say get it when it's on sale if you want it. 20€ seems really unreasonable to me for what it provides...

For what i've read above about "it uses plugin slots", from what i can see in my mo2 load order, those are all esl files. And i doubt one will ever have issues with the current 4096 or smt esl limit.

Edited yesterday at 03:41 AM by LunaticNM

[Savela]

Yeah, i think i will not get it anytime soon. Thanks for the input ^^

[scorrp10]

The AE addon is a thoroughly uderwhelming collection of CC mods that are (IMHO) subpar to what can be found for free on Nexus and other platforms.  I suppose SOME modders might release mods that require stuff found in the AE addon...  but I am yet to see those.  The 4 CC mods included in SSE 1.6.* are now considered part of the base game and there are mods needing them - but thats about it.   

You can just check it out a decide for yourself

https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/skyrim-anniversary-edition-all-new-content-all-creation-club-dlc-listed

[jjb54]

The upgrade did ZERO, for game play.

> The CC Mods are crap. Sorry, they are buggy as hell.

When you try to talk to Bethesda, that INCLUDED the mods - they tell you to go see the mod-creator. When you go see the Mod-Creator, they tell you to go see Beth, as they had no control how they applied it to the game.

Even some of the BASE GAME Quests and such are now buggy.

No, the so called "Upgrade" did anything but upgrade.