Not installing mods breaks immersion. Can't wait for the CK.

What an odd thread, what breaks my immersion is looking at blurry textures, even on ultra!

I tend to get distracted by a new mod for a few days but eventually they fade into the background and I get back to enjoying the game, I do kind of understand the OP's point, digging into the blood and guts of the game too much does dull the magic but I suppose it adds a magic of it's own.

I usually pick mods that will fit in with my vision of the gameworld and unless the mod has it's name somewhere in the game eg. loading screens then no I don't have this problem. I find it more immersion breaking to find cabbages in a barrel in tombs everywhere and the same amount.

The bugs, imbalances, and odd physics behavior that exists in the vanilla game often breaks my immersion more than mods generally do - especially not mods that actually *fix* these issues. Now if the mods add ridiculous obvious things that greatly contrast the themes of the vanilla game... then yeah they would break your immersion. That doesn't stop many people from enjoying those types of mods of course. One good example of mods that will add to immersion will probably be vampire and werewolf mods - as they exist in the default game, both those systems really lack depth (and aren't balanced very well) and I think modders are going to make a far more enjoyable and complex gameplay experience for anyone wanting to play as those creatures, vs what the vanilla game offers.

Another thing to consider at least is that part of the fun of modding is making and/or altering them yourself, instead of only using other people's works. Creating something, testing it, and finally getting it in game is very satisfying in and of itself. You may want to consider modding in things that make the game seem more realistic for you - I don't see how that would hurt your immersion, in fact it should help to enhance it.

Unless you mean the simple knowledge that things in the game aren't real and are designed by people hurts your ability to feel immersed in the game world... in which case I have something unfortunate to tell you about the vanilla game...

I found mods like Traveling Merchants and Crowded Cities added to the games. But as soon as you added in "new" and fancy armors, I felt like I was abusing the game. I was able to find some armors that people made that were essentially just Glass or Daedric quality armors, but looked completely different. I was okay with that, but my problem was that it only costed a few thousand gold from a merchant. It's VERY easy to get that kind of money in the game. I wish they took the time to make a quest for it.

So yeah, I think it depends on the mod. Adding content like new quests, fixing bugs, adding NPCs and what not I feel add to the game. But "OMGZ LEET ARMUR" breaks immersion.