Burn or Embrace? Should you wait a bit before modding a game?

[Lachdonin]

I refuse to vote simply because i don't think Bethesda does a terrible job (except for Oblivion, but that was an outlier) and, sarcasm or not, i refuse to engage in that kind of shenanigans.

 

By and large, i ALWAYS recommend playing a vanilla game before modding. I don't care if it's a Bethesda game, i don't care if its Warcraft/Starcraft. I don't care if it's a Source-copy-paste-shenanigans. You can't identify what elements you don't like and want changed until you've experienced the basic package. Someone may recommend a combat mod to you, but you find the basic system suits your interests just fine. Someone may recomend something like Realistic Needs, but you discover that being able to eat, drink and sleep but not HAVING to is more your style.

 

You can't identify what you like or don't like until you've stripped away all the options. Start with a foundation, and build on it, don't start with a city and try to figure out what you can cut off.

[fraquar]

4 years later I simply wouldn't feel right recommending to anyone to play this game totally stock. At the very least use the Unofficial Patches, SkyUI, SKSE, ENBoost and the global graphics replacer of your choice. You still get the totally vanilla experience, but at least the game is a helluva lot more stable.

Edited November 29, 2015 by fraquar

[cheimison]

You should never buy or even play an Elder Scrolls game until it's been out for a couple of years and mods have been produced to fix the glaring flaws that infest Bethesda's thinly disguised beta testing.

Same goes for Paradox games.

Hell, Daggerfall came out almost twenty years ago and it's still so buggy and f***ed up that it's going to be basically unplayable/game broken half the time you get past level 10.

I won't even play Oblivion without mods. Leveling up makes you suck, still to this day not fixed by any official patch. Bethesda is apparently an idiot savant, capable of producing games that only strangers on the internet can make worth the investment they demand of your time.

I might add that this makes Bethesda's console focus doubly annoying, because these games are essentially garbage/broken in consoles and can't be modded. Many games these days benefit from mods, but TES games are always broken without them. There is not a single TES game which has ever been made without some gameplay breaking bug, glitched major quest or simply nonsensical issues with bad leveling systems. Morrowind is the only one I'd even consider worth playing without the unofficial patches, and it's vastly better with mods and community patches.

I can't figure out if Bethesda actually play tests their own games with anyone except their conceited development staff, because there is so much crap in your typical game that is not an accident but built-in retarded (like the Oblivion leveling system, or half of the skill tree perks being s#*! in Skyrim). I can not believe how much patent garbage gets past them.

I do like TES games modified, I would not even bother turning them on on a console.

Edited November 29, 2015 by cheimison

[rizon72]

I will admit, when I first played Skyrim I played about 5 minutes and shut it down, that's how much I hated the faces of the people. However, went and added a bunch of mods and made the game much better.

[Kriiks]

For Morrowind I'd recommend to launch vanilla first and look around a bit, just to see how game originally looked and then install Morrowind Ovehaul for nicer graphics. It doesn't add any mechanics, just looks. Later you can start adding mods what change gameplay, add companions (there are some real gems!) etc. Unofficial patches from start of course and if you have both expansions, maybe mod what delays Dark Brotherhood attacks as it was actually more intended happen to player who finished main game and not for complete "unknown" beginner.