Bad to have too many mods?

[RasAlgethi24]

Is it bad to have too many mods? Assuming you're load order is correct and your mods do not conflict is it simply bad to have too many esps active?

 

I have around 90 mods but almost half of them are just armor/weapon addition mods.

 

My game run fine (with the exception that Dawnguard for some reason causes save bloat and forced 3rd person perspective for me so I have disabled currently).

[maxxron]

Rockin' 74 mods atm and my game runs flawlessly. Haven't installed Dawnguard yet though.

 

Would be more, but the Texture Pack Combiner incorporates 25 of them into 2.

 

I just pay attention to the descriptions/readme's and make sure that the mods I'm running aren't conflicting, while running BOSS every time I do install something new. So far so good.

[Deleted4547977User]

I have 109 mods, but I don't have any problems

it's easy to find a problem because a conflict mod if your mods is not much :D

 

[Rabbit1251]

I understand that the upper limit is 255 plus 1, but in reality it largely depends on the computer setup that you're running and your mod list. Some people can get more in than others.

 

 

Rabbit

[Javalin]

Realistically.. You can have as many mods as you like (Unless they are ESP/ESM)

 

Basically saying that, if the mod replaces textures and meshes (without incorporating new items) then you can essentially have as many as you like. I'm running about 20 different ESP's/ESNs. With about 50 or so others which dont use them. Quite handy :)

[RasAlgethi24]

Thanks for the responses. My game works fine other than the Dawnguard issue. I was just worried because I'm a armor/weapon prostitute and like to add any new cool weapon/armor mod I find so it results in a lot of esps (like I said, about 40 of the 90 esps I have active).

[RasAlgethi24]

Of course as soon as I say my game is fine I download two mods that causes me problems.

 

Dibelas - NPC overhual. Causes my game to freeze. Happens within a few minutes of running skyrim, every time. Uninstalled and now its fine.

 

Imaginator. Causes save bloat. Tested, saved and instantly brought my save from 8mb to 12mb.

[Stemin]

Is it bad to have too many mods? Assuming you're load order is correct and your mods do not conflict is it simply bad to have too many esps active?

 

I have around 90 mods but almost half of them are just armor/weapon addition mods.

 

My game run fine (with the exception that Dawnguard for some reason causes save bloat and forced 3rd person perspective for me so I have disabled currently).

 

The answer to your question is going to be an opinion. I would argue that yes, it can be a bad thing to have a lot of mods. If you don't think so, take one look at the Dawnguard threads about people complaining about all the bugs. If you run it stock, it actually functions pretty well. But the problem with 90 mods is you don't really know what changes were actually made to your game. Something seemingly insignificant could end up being a character that gets heavily scripted by Bethesda in a later DLC or patch.

 

Once the GotY is out, assuming all the patches and DLC's are out at that point, then the risk becomes a lot less. But you can still run into problems that you can't foresee.

 

The reason Bethesda's games are so buggy, despite the naysayers saying it's because they do a horrible job, is more due to the fact that the game has such an immense amount of content and such a larger number of people playing it.

 

Skyrim was developed with a team of less than 100 people. You can't properly test a game with 100 people that's going to be played by millions of people when it's a game of this type where the players choices can effect something you didn't properly foresee changing.

 

People are always doing things outside of the realm of "normal" play that can potentially break something in the scripts. This is how exploits are found. Sometimes it's a simple oversight by whoever is doing the scripting, like a young kid who goes through a town and just kills everything and then complains his quests don't work, but sometimes it's something that's just not supposed to happen, like when a player finds a way into an area before he's supposed to be able to.

 

In other words, your mods might seem stable now, but somewhere along the line, you might do something, maybe years later and it's something you never tried before and all the sudden, ctd.

 

Texture and mesh mods are _usually_ harmless, but you also have to consider that unless it's a replacer, some type of change in the creation kit is always necessary to put it in the game, and that means the possibility of conflicts down the line.

 

I mostly play the game stock. Mods often feel like cheating to me, unless they're a new area or something, so I'm of the opinion that I would rather put as many hours into the stock game as possible before opening pandora's box. As long as there are still things for me to do in the stock game and with the addition of Dawnguard, that becomes even more relevant, I'll continue to play the game stock for many hours until adding mods.

 

I read these threads and honestly, I haven't come across 90 mods I want to install.

Edited August 12, 2012 by Stemin

[RasAlgethi24]

^Thanks for the opinion. I understand your view point and obviously something I have done is causing dawnguard to not work right ( as evident by the others having the same problem as me in that dawnguard thread). My only thinking is that most my mods are just weapon and armor additions which I don't see how could be that harmful. Just making sure. I've been more hesitant to try out new mods lately, specifically ones that haven't been tested much.

 

By the way do you guys recommend Optimize Textures? With all my texture/armor/weapon mods I figure it would be good for me. If so, can someone give instructions on how to run it properly? I'm not familiar with these things.

Edited August 13, 2012 by RasAlgethi24

[StayFrosty05]

Honestly, I would give Dawnguard the boot rather than give up my mods....would prefer a stable modded Skyrim over a stable vanilla Dawnguard Skyrim....Anyway, I run about 90 mods myself, also roughly half of them being texture mods...I have had a few initial hick ups with Dawnguard, only one direct mod clash (a quest mod with a shack in the same cell as a Dawnguard location, instant CTD's when I tried to enter the cell), other hick ups have been slowly sorted out....nothing major.

 

As for an 'Optimize Textures' Mod, I really like the Cinemascope myself....makes the game truly a beauty to behold...though I am afraid I am not much help over the installing, am a noob with mods and computers and had a friend install it for me...though as I have been learning more about how this all works, I have looked over the Cinemascope instructions again and it only seems to get complicated if you choose to install the 'Imaginator' with it....the instructions for the rest are fairly clear and precise....Also, check out 'Gophervids' on youtube, his tutorials are excellent...above par....very clear, very precise video walk throughs...If I recall correctly I am quite sure he has done an installation walk through on a popular ENB.

Edited August 13, 2012 by StayFrosty05