I am playing too much

[tomomi1922]

I just came back to Skyrim. And for the last 2 weeks I am playing too much. Everyday I get home from work I get on Skyrim, and nothing else.

But I am not even playing. I am at level 10, and barely met the High Hothgrad elders, and possibly did a few minor side quests. I just realized I have been spending my time on a shopping spree, mod shopping spree. No, I am not downloading all of Nexus and blindly install everything. I am careful. I read everything, spend a lot of time testing mods (without save), checking out player-home, DLC-sized quest mods, outfits, grass, weathers, lighting.

So far, I am impressed with how stable Skyrim SE is. I went through 2 CTD nightmares. First was the hardest to diagnose, tried and tested a thousand scenarios. But I managed to narrow down it is SKEE's problem by reading comments. Second is easy, each time I take off clothes it CTD, skeleton problem. I made a switch to MO2, 3 days spent reinstalling, but worth it. But this makes my addiction worse: with MO2 power in my hand, I end up even more daring with mods because it's so easy to install/uninstall mods and handle file conflicts.

Thanks to this little software called https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4143, I can easily backup ENB and install new ones. I went through 4-5 different ones and at times spent hours just tweaking them to death. Started with Re-Engaged, and due to various problems I couldn't tweak I jumped to a few, PRT being my favorite one, but at last I went back to Re-Engaged. Everything is stable now, I hope. Don't me started with ELFX, ELE, RS. ELFX should be great on its own, but Riften's Mistvale Keep is too bright (like author forgot to work on it). ELE+RS = too plain Dragon Reach. Now ELFX + ELE gives very nice Mistvale Keep but too dark comparing to Dragonreach. The inconsistency drives me nuts.

Am I like the 1% or who is playing like this? I guess this is why I moved on from Assassin Creed every single time: no modding, despite how fun it is to climb anywhere (imagine Skyrim can climb mountains, castles, and rooftop jumping, with followers).

[Lisnpuppy]

Playing with mods is internet smack.

lol

[jones177]

Hi

 

If you live in Skyrim there is no point in rushing off to do the main quest. The last time I completed it was in 2012.

 

I only go to High Hothgrad to start the Dragonborn quest & that is usually at level 50 or higher.

 

I spend most of my time finding homes(MHIYH) & outfitting the 100 plus followers I have installed. This is a large task because each follower needs 3 outfits(AFT). To avoid fashion disasters all outfits need to be different(mix & match). You could imagine the embarrassment if one follower came across another wearing the same thing.

 

To earn a home & outfits the followers must fight bandits, beasts & the undead while the military is occupied with the war.

I need lots of these villains for them to fight because they provide the loot that finances all the outfits & homes. Mining & bounties are not enough.

The amount of villains can sometimes be staggering. In dungeons, 300 draugr in a cell is not uncommon & I use the shout "unrelenting force" mainly to clear piles bodies from choke points.

Some of the forgotten dungeons(mod) take days to clear & items like sleeping bags, food & water(iNeed) are required.

 

All that being said you can see why it takes me to level 50 to get around going to High Hothgrad.

 

Lisnpuppy is right. After reading this back, I have come to the conclusion that I must be high on something.

 

Later

[tomomi1922]

Hi Jones177,

 

You sure have patience. Imo, High Horthgarth is one of the first quest I must complete: Dragonborn needs to learn how to use shout. I also did the 2nd quest so I can reveal who Delphine is (beside just a barmaid). Imo, this is about where my adventures begin. Or as you put it, my life begins, as I live in Skyrim.

How the heck do you have 300 draugr in 1 dungeon? You remind me of that movie The Myth where Jackie Chan as a general fighting an entire army at choke point. The bodies pile up taller than him. Wouldn't this CTD your game? And what mods do you use to get these many enemies? 30 I understand, 300 ...

The last 2 days I have been running around between Riften, Whiterun, Winterhold to diagnose a problem with ELFX and ELE, and tweaking ENB. I wouldn't believe me either, but 6pm-2am ... lots of running around, checking, qqq out of game, check LOOT, read comments, log back in game, rinse and repeat. One time I accidentally hit Facelight edit mode, and saved, corrupted the save. I am not even playing the game.

Tonight I got home at 2am from work. I am going to do some adventure... screw it.

[kthompsen]

I NEVER even bothered with main quests until Skyrim came out. So don't feel bad. I used to play Elder Scrolls like it was GTA game or something... a psychotic murder spree.

 

And the thing is, that's totally legitimate too. In fact, Todd Howard himself said GTA3 is his favorite game of all time. So it kind of tells you where they're coming from, funnily. I don't think they mind people just screwing around. Do what you want and have fun. I don't know what it was about Skyrim that finally got me to really follow quests, but you don't have to do that right away.

[tomomi1922]

I NEVER even bothered with main quests until Skyrim came out. So don't feel bad. I used to play Elder Scrolls like it was GTA game or something... a psychotic murder spree.

 

And the thing is, that's totally legitimate too. In fact, Todd Howard himself said GTA3 is his favorite game of all time. So it kind of tells you where they're coming from, funnily. I don't think they mind people just screwing around. Do what you want and have fun. I don't know what it was about Skyrim that finally got me to really follow quests, but you don't have to do that right away.

Way back in middle school, friend of mine lent me a TES game. I didn't know what it was. I think it was Morrowind. I even mistook it as a Neverwinter's Night franchise. This is even before Everquest, so 1st person RPG felt so strange, and it took 30 seconds to go through a load screen door, so I never played it. Skyrim is literately my entry to TES. Coming from Dragon Age, I naturally had high expectation for heavy RPG elements and strong characters. Then I ran by Nexus mod page, and spent about a month just downloading playing with mods. Story took back seat, "immersion" suddenly took priority :)

 

For being an open world game and with so many mods, I spent a lot of time playing out my own fantasy (without knowing too much about TES). I still do quests, but I treated the content totally from my own fantasy perspective. That was fun.

 

Until very recently, thank to your inputs from other thread, I am actually much more grounded and solid with the lore, history, and backstory.

[kthompsen]

 

I NEVER even bothered with main quests until Skyrim came out. So don't feel bad. I used to play Elder Scrolls like it was GTA game or something... a psychotic murder spree.

 

And the thing is, that's totally legitimate too. In fact, Todd Howard himself said GTA3 is his favorite game of all time. So it kind of tells you where they're coming from, funnily. I don't think they mind people just screwing around. Do what you want and have fun. I don't know what it was about Skyrim that finally got me to really follow quests, but you don't have to do that right away.

Way back in middle school, friend of mine lent me a TES game. I didn't know what it was. I think it was Morrowind. I even mistook it as a Neverwinter's Night franchise. This is even before Everquest, so 1st person RPG felt so strange, and it took 30 seconds to go through a load screen door, so I never played it. Skyrim is literately my entry to TES. Coming from Dragon Age, I naturally had high expectation for heavy RPG elements and strong characters. Then I ran by Nexus mod page, and spent about a month just downloading playing with mods. Story took back seat, "immersion" suddenly took priority :smile:

 

For being an open world game and with so many mods, I spent a lot of time playing out my own fantasy (without knowing too much about TES). I still do quests, but I treated the content totally from my own fantasy perspective. That was fun.

 

Until very recently, thank to your inputs from other thread, I am actually much more grounded and solid with the lore, history, and backstory.

 

 

Cool. Yeah, I love the lore too obviously, but at the end of the day, you and I are a big part of the experience too.. so don't ever overthink it. Just do what you were already doing and have fun :)

 

Strangely, this is actually the kind of final stance of one of the main TES writers: Michael Kirkbride, who wrote Morrowind and some other things, and is responsible for a ton of lore. He also wrote something outside the games, call c0da.. which basically gives a foundation for players to invent a lot of their lore too. Some people get way too carried away with it, but it goes to show that the writers want people to have freedom too.

[jones177]

Hi Jones177,

 

You sure have patience. Imo, High Horthgarth is one of the first quest I must complete: Dragonborn needs to learn how to use shout. I also did the 2nd quest so I can reveal who Delphine is (beside just a barmaid). Imo, this is about where my adventures begin. Or as you put it, my life begins, as I live in Skyrim.

 

How the heck do you have 300 draugr in 1 dungeon? You remind me of that movie The Myth where Jackie Chan as a general fighting an entire army at choke point. The bodies pile up taller than him. Wouldn't this CTD your game? And what mods do you use to get these many enemies? 30 I understand, 300 ...

 

The last 2 days I have been running around between Riften, Whiterun, Winterhold to diagnose a problem with ELFX and ELE, and tweaking ENB. I wouldn't believe me either, but 6pm-2am ... lots of running around, checking, qqq out of game, check LOOT, read comments, log back in game, rinse and repeat. One time I accidentally hit Facelight edit mode, and saved, corrupted the save. I am not even playing the game.

 

Tonight I got home at 2am from work. I am going to do some adventure... screw it.

 

Hi

 

Not 300 in a dungeon. 300 in a cell. There may be 3 cells in the dungeon.

 

I recently add a post that explains my dungeon game. https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/6721707-massive-battle-mods/

 

The amount of aware enemy NPCs your system can handle depends on your CPU choice. Other than high frame rate it is the only reason to have a i7 8700k or i7-8086K.

 

Later