Recommend mods for my newbie GF?

[Tubbist]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently in the process of re-modding skyrim SE as a surprise for my newbie girlfriend who has never played a modded skyrim before. Seeing as it has been several years since I modded the game and there's a whole lot to choose from, I figured I could ask you guys what mods you'd recommend in order to give her a proper introduction to mods. Especially considering the fact that she hasn't really understood the point in it when I've tried explaining, haha. See link for the mod list I've scrambled together so far.

On another note, I recently installed the"Open cities" mod and later discovered that it could be quite taxing on the system and could easily cause compatibility problems with other mods. That being said, how would one go about uninstalling said mod, with its heavy script reliance and all, without ruining the savefile?

Cheers

[Pradallama]

I​ guess it depends on what type of player you are. Personally I'm an immersion type player, so I like mods that make things more realistic. That in mind, my personal go to mods are:

 

​

 

​Immersive Citizens

Helgen Reborn

​SKY UI

​Reverb and Ambience overhaul

​Point The Way

Winter is Coming Cloaks

​Cloaks of Skyrim

Edited December 7, 2017 by Pradallama

[Jebbalon]

Open Cities is not taxing at all - especially on 64bit. Just make sure you have any patches required by other mods.

RLO - not my first choice. ELFX for interiors and Vivid Weathers for exterior lighting would be my choice - but there are several to choose from so that is personal choice.

*cough* OBIS SE *cough*

 

Actually if she played Skyrim unmodded before - then Open cities will be biggest difference by far. Riding horse into town is fun!

*cough* OBIS :)

[Tubbist]

Open Cities is not taxing at all - especially on 64bit. Just make sure you have any patches required by other mods.

RLO - not my first choice. ELFX for interiors and Vivid Weathers for exterior lighting would be my choice - but there are several to choose from so that is personal choice.

*cough* OBIS SE *cough*

 

Actually if she played Skyrim unmodded before - then Open cities will be biggest difference by far. Riding horse into town is fun!

*cough* OBIS :smile:

OBIS huh? I haven't heard about that one before. I'll look into it! You're probably right about open cities, so I'll go ahead and keep it! Thanks buddy

Edited December 9, 2017 by Tubbist

[fullex2064]

OBIS is must have material. I personally like coupling it with brigandage, really injects life into bandits!

[fullex2064]

For gameplay Iâd recommend classic elder scrolls attributes and smart automatic attribute leveling. Fleshes the leveling out a little

[goranpaa]

As for the Skyrim landscape and lighting.

 

Tamriel Reloaded HD the 2K version.

 

Skyrim 3D Trees complete with the flora. Let this mod overwrite some of the trees in Tamriel Reloaded HD. Then you get a lush and very nice landscape.

 

The Great forest of Whiterun hold + Unique locations, the Riverwood forest mod. If you install these too? Wait to overwrite until installing these 2 mods with Skyrim 3D trees then.

 

Water plants.

 

Realistic Water 2.

 

Nordic snow.

 

3D clouds.

 

NAT, for the lighting. + an eventual ENB if you feel the need? I didn't. :smile:

 

Optional: Animalica from old Skyrim, the lore friendly version and remove the Tarantulas addon.

 

101 bugs for SSE. Adds a lot of Butterflies and Dragonflies.

 

Ducks and Swans, Birds of Skyrim and Sky Birds. If you want more birds?

 

Imaginator for SSE, for adjustments of the colours, saturation and the contrast etc. Adding 2 notches of blue are nice. Especially for the snow.

Edited December 18, 2017 by goranpaa

[nightscrawl]

Can you just ask her what she might like to change? Since she's played Skyrim before, has she ever been going along and thought, "This might look better this way?" or "I wish I could do this or that?"

 

I am a BIG proponent of people choosing the mods that work for them. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to describe some of the more well known/popular mods, how they change the playing experience, and ask, "Is this something you'd be interested in?"

 

I see that you have iNeed. A mod like that changes the play experience in a significant way. Do you know if she wants that?

Edited December 20, 2017 by nightscrawl

[QuagaarWarrior]

I've been modding skyrim for some time and my tip is to decide what type of character you want to play as before you start modding (i.e. mage, archer, warrior etc.) then build you load order around this. For example if I was playing as a Mage then my go to mods would be spell packs like Apocalypse. If I'm playing as a Warrior then I probably wouldn't bother with these mods. I see a lot of modders packing their load orders with lots of mods to try and fit every play style and then end up running into issues.

 

I'm still playing old Skyrim but have several profiles set up under Mod Organiser: Mage, Survival, Civil War & Legacy of the Dragonborn.

 

There are a couple of mods however that go against (slightly) the advice I have just given that I would recommend: Nexus Skyrim Overhaul & Nexus Skyrim Overhaul - Magic Edition. The reason I recommend these is because they only take up one plugin slot and provide A LOT of content by combining a ton of other mods.

 

If you decide to follow my advice, let us know what type of character you want to play as and I'll recommend some mods tailored to that playthrough

[Tubbist]

Can you just ask her what she might like to change? Since she's played Skyrim before, has she ever been going along and thought, "This might look better this way?" or "I wish I could do this or that?"

 

I am a BIG proponent of people choosing the mods that work for them. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to describe some of the more well known/popular mods, how they change the playing experience, and ask, "Is this something you'd be interested in?"

 

I see that you have iNeed. A mod like that changes the play experience in a significant way. Do you know if she wants that?

Come to think of it I think you're actually spot on. When telling her about the survival aspects of frostfall she saw it as nothing more than an annoyance, so using Ineed might be borderline to a bad idea after all.

As for what character she plays, she's running a khajiit theif/assassin so are there any particular mods that enhances such aspects of the game that you recommend? From what I can recall is the one thing that she has clearly expressed negativity towards that a lot of houses that has those thieves guild markings has bad loot despite being marked as a good spot. And also the dungeons of the game in general, but I doubt that there's a mod that fixes that.

Thanks for the answers. Greatly appreciated!