Playing Skyrim without gameplay overhauls - worth it?

[Deleted4610270User]

I know this is not Mod Talk, but I wanted vanilla Skyrim players opinion. I installed all latest Unofficial Patches, a ton of graphics-altering mods, and many others. None, however, adjust difficulty or gameplay. Is it worth playing Skyrim like that? I play on Expert and I find it difficult already, so I am not sure about all the complaints about how easy the game is. I am not a big Elder Scrolls player though. I waited this long to play because I knew mods would evolve and make the game that much better.

 

I thought of using SkyRe or Perkus Maximus, but I am not sure... I am playing as Destruction Mage, Dark Elf. Please let me know if I should use some gameplay overhaul and whether I need to start a new game to use one. I am fairly low level now - 6. I use Mod Manager, so I am not afraid of modding because I can always get rid of the mod without compatibility problems.

 

Are there any gameplay mods that are MUST HAVE?

 

Also, at times I cannot start the game from the beginning because the carriage wobbles, rattles, and flips and falls throughout the entry scene, never reaching Helgen!!! What is that about?! Mod Organizer shows no errors and my previous saves work fine without problems. Is that a mod or game issue?

[MotoSxorpio]

If you have not played the game through without mods, doing so at least once will give you an idea of what you might want to change. The game is fine for vanilla playthrough. I give it an 8 of 10.

 

As to the carriage wobbles etc...best to either get an alternative start mod to bypass the Tutorial section (Helgen) as it is intense in scripts and can break even without mods(!) if you are planning to mod. There are a number of known causes for the carraige wobble/rattle/flips and falls. Some you wouldn't think had anything to do with that scene.

 

Even installation of USKP should be done after a playthrough, to see if in your own eyes the game even needs fixing. ;) There's always a choice in modding.

 

As for Must Have mods, you might get more specific on what you would want for answers. Some 30k mods for Skyrim...how many of those are the Must Haves? Find a category that you believe you game needs fixed/altered and ask for that, say you want combat to be adjusted, but not heavy NPC edits...There's mods for that. Maybe you just want a more balanced levelling system, or followers that don't block your path through a doorway.

 

At any rate, the spice is in the little details. And good luck with your gaming adventure.

[saurusmaximus]

As mentioned above, it's all about deciding what you want the game to be. Being that your playing a mage-type character, allow me to recommend two mods, Smart Cast and Better Magichttp://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4374/?. These two make playing as a mage a lot more viable and fun. There are plenty of other magic overhauls if you don't like these two. In terms of difficulty, I've never used any of the big overhauls, primarilly because of all the patching you seem to have to do to make them work. The one I do use is Enemy Overhaul as it simply makes the baddies tougher without changing a lot of other stuff. I could go on and on with recommendations, but then I would be writing a book instead of a posting :laugh: so I'll just leave it here.

[Tynan1000]

Imo you should always play a game unmodded first, to see what the original game is like. But, I think you would like mods like Ihud etc, that take away the hud for a more immersive experience. Also check out moreHUD, this makes it so when you hover over items, details about said items pop up in the corner, so you don't have to pick them up then look if they're worth carrying etc, oh and it tells you your carry weight and how heavy the item is before you pick it up. Adding mods like that, that don't change much are best on a first playthrough if you ask me.

[cdcooley]

I have no interest in the general overhaul mods. I do use a personally customized version of Balanced Magic for what I think is a better experience playing mage characters. It makes magic scale so that my level 30 mage doesn't have to learn how to use a weapon to take out enemies. (In the core game, the damage done by spells never scales and I find that for the first few levels a mage is quite powerful then gradually gets weaker.) After seeing Better Magic linked above, I might give it a try instead for my next game.

[stebo104]

couple things, I would recommend that you use Mod Organizer over Nexus Mod Manager, much safer to remove mobs and change stuff around without messing with any of the TES5 folders. Not to mention the Profile system is much better then what NMM is trying to do. Watch Gophers video's about it how to set it up, and mod installations(his intro vid is

) . There is like 11 videos in all for it, so it'll take some time to watch.

 

Next depending on how hard you want skyrim to be. You can try the Requiem rpg overhaul, this mod makes Legendary difficulty seem like a cake walk. Heck the 3 wolfs on the way to riverwood killed me soo fast I didn't even have time to draw my weapon lol (till I twicked some of the settings to make it to where i'd live more then 1-2 hits). Only problem with Requiem that I find is there is tons of mods that need compatibility patches, like x2-x3 what perma/skyre needs.

[AlexZander40]

I have never played Skyrim vanilla, and will never play it that way. After having modded out Morrowind, Oblivion, FO3 and New Vegas, I know what I like from these types of games. And I am usually a year or two behind getting to some of these games. So there are tons of great mods out by then, especially gameplay, that I want to try immediately. I played some vanilla Oblivion and vanilla Fallout 3, but didn't take long before I had issues with the vanilla gameplay development. So ended up going with Francesco's Overhaul for Oblivion, Fallout Wander's Edition for FO3 and Project Nevada for FNV. Made the games more enjoyable for me. Every gamer is different though, and has their different tastes of what they want from an RPG like Skyrim. That is where the profiles of Mod Organizer is brilliant, being able to play several different mod load outs and compare.

 

Skyrim Redone is my favorite Overhaul.(Better to start a new character with.) I also use some Dragon Overhaul mods to make them tougher, Deadly Dragons, Enhanced Mighty Dragons and Dragon Combat Overhaul. Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim is a nice Magic Overhaul mod that you might take a look at, since you are playing a Mage character.

 

Eventually I will move over to Mod Organizer and setup some different profiles. Looking forward to giving Perkus Maximus a try.

 

As recommended above, Gopher has some great videos on his Youtube channel.

[LoneWolfEburg]

It depends. Vanilla Skyrim is only slightly higher than "mediocre", but you can improve it by adding more quest mods, or more custom dungeons, or more gameplay overhauls, or all three.

[Falconiano2]

I find that most all combat "overhauls" are actually a big mess that essentially amounts to scrambling data around (often in unrealistic ways) but they really do nothing new.

Some actually change around things that could cause issues with other mods such as altering armors and weapons or perks.

As far as combat goes you just need a mod that makes enemies heal/dodge/block more (ESRO/Ultimate combat/ASIS), all the other combat mods do is increase stagger / damage which is something you can do with the difficulty slider and a single console command. If you're a mage get a mod that lets spells scale and you're done.

SkyTweak changes about every game parameter to your liking so there's that too.

Last thing, SkyrimMoreSpawns clones enemies (including mod-added ones) without conflicting with anything.

The only scripted combat overhaul that I use is Deadly Dragons because it actually adds many abilities to dragons it's not just a stat edit.