Hello all,

Little background first, my son got Skyrim for the PS3 for Christmas, which is what he wanted, and I was very excited too knowing I would get to play as well. Fast forward to level 39 and it became unplayable for me. Constant freezes, stutters, lag, and crashes. So I stopped playing altogether hoping when the 1.4 patch came it would fix it. As a side note, my son does not seem to have the same problems I do when playing.

As it turns out, during that time I wound up getting a new computer, a sweet machine, so I decided to get Skyrim for the PC and give it a go. I absolutely love it! Playing on Ultra settings, and it plays perfectly. I also got a Logitech game pad that is very similar to the PS3 controller, and it is working well.

No onto my dillema. The mods interest me, but I'm not sure if I should use them. Are there any that absolutely make the game a better game? One's that I really shouldn't be without? Or is it just a matter of personal preference. I kind of feel like I should play the game through once without any mods and then maybe start adding them in for different characters. I'd love to hear your thoughts on why you do or don't use mods and which ones. I really don't care about the texture ones as the game looks stunning on my machine.

SkyUI and iHud are a must for me, to have a better interface. For the rest you should probably have a look on Skyrimnexus and judge for yourself

I always play the Vanilla game first. No mods. I get the experience Bethesda intended and no overpowered weapons or gear. If I were to add any mods right off the bat it would only be mods that add better visuals such as improved textures or differences to lighting. Once I've played the default game I know better what I like and don't like and start looking through the list of available mods to see what might work for me. The top 100 list is usually a good place to start to see what is most popular with the other players. There may not be that many now but before long there will be thousands of mods to sort through. It can be daunting. But on the up side there are so many options that it is a great way to customize the game to your own preferences. Take your time and test one mod at a time to make sure you don't have any major issues with one. The worst thing you can do is to install 20 or 30 mods at once. If you have issues you'll have no idea which one is causing it. The mods can add many hours of extra game play. I highly recommend trying them out.

Since the CK came out yesterday, I doubt there are that many good mods out there, but instead a bunch of crap mods. Yes, there are some good ones, but the really good ones will not be out for a bit as the modders work their magic. So, don't be in a hurry to get a bunch of mods just yet. Do to the lack of mod content, it is hard to say what is a good mod, which is a must have, and which ones might be nice for some people.

This is not say that you should not look at the mods, and if you see one you like, try it out. For example, I will be grabbing a house mod this weekend to go with my new character. Just be careful about most of the ones you will see in the next week, the cream is not there yet to rise to the top, so to speak.

Mod mixes are a personal choice and get ones that make the game more like you want it to be.

You got to level 40 on vanilla on the PS3. I say you got through the game in vanilla enough to have a good feeling of the game. As for waht mods to use this is really personal preference. There some really good ones and searching the forum on what mods you need should already turn up some lists. Also the top files on Nexus are a good start.

Do use at all times either the Nexus Mod Manager or Wrye Bash/Smash (whatever the Skyrim version is called). Bash is more powerful but a bit harder to learn. Not using them can make removing mods cumbersome. It's the best tip I can give you. As for mods specifically:
- SkyUI
- Weapons and Armor fixes
Both are great and do not impact gameplay, also the HD texturepack

Also one small tip, try not to use Fast Travel. It took me 150 hours to accept that but now I love it. When I'm to hurried to not use fast travel I put the game down and do something else.

There are very few mods that 'everyone' likes. 90% of the changes they make is just personal preference. With that said, they can extend the life of the game far beyond what the vanilla has to offer if you don't mind experimenting with them. Every so often you can find a gem which genuinely improves some aspect of the game for you.

The only ones I'm using are a couple to make locations prettier and more scenic, and the arrow crafting and lockpick crafting ones for the moment. Maybe I'll add a very basic house mod, or camp mod for the beginning of the game, as I've just restarted a ranger type character and city housing doesn't suit that style.

I'll also be using the unofficial patch that Kivan's started work on when that starts to roll out, as he tends to fix the things Beth don't get round to.

Apart from that I'm waiting for a while to see what quest mods come out down the line.

There is no reason NOT to mod. Ever.

There may or may not be a reason for you to mod the game. This comes down to preference. I will be modding the hell out of the game, because in my opinion, there's more glaringly wrong than epicly right at the moment. Your mileage may vary, but any time you find yourself saying "I wish this was different...", you'll probably find at least 3 mods that fix it for you (in the near future), with more variations coming.

Go and try them out. You can install them in a few clicks, and if you don't like them, un-install them in a few clicks too.

Thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate it! I'll do some searching and see if there is anything I really want to try. The arrow crafting has caught my eye.

All mods are about personal preferences. There are many "must-have" mods that I would never use because they don't suit what I want. Try out a couple and see what you like and what you don't. Even better, learn to use the CK yourself. Many of the best mods for me are just simple little tweaks needed to make the game a bit more difficult and thus more enjoyable.

I have never played a vanilla game with Skyrim or with Fallout New Vegas. I had mods installed right out of the box. I want to say, however, that my choices have nothing to do with the hard work that games developers put into the games. I am a retired senior citizen who enjoys playing advlt type games. For example, my Dragon Age Origins (DAO) game would be rated "R" or higher. I like to say that my DAO game is rated "G" for Grandpa.

i think that whether or not mods make the game better or not is just an opinion, becuase not everyone likes what others like. i don't personally enjoy mods that change or add things that aren't lore friendly, i steer clear of those! it makes the game just a melting pot of ideas and that isn't my fancy, i like the game to be lore friendly. so i just get mods that add maybe features that i liked that were left out, has nothing to do with lore, it just makes the game more enjoyable like mechanics. that and texture packs! but the skyrim high res texture pack bethesda released fits me perfectly, skyrim HD texture pack is great yes, but it's also a REtexture, not just upgraded, I like the look of the vanilla textures better so now that they're high def it's better for me.

SkyUI is far from a crap mod. It is essential for ANY Keyboard and Mouse user because BGS can't make a PC UI to save their life.

You see this is why I still play all TES games on a PS3 (well actually I got an Xbox just to play Morrowind). You gotta download a program with a wierd name like WryeBash and figure out how to use it, not to mention figuring out how to configure a controller to work with your game, which can be a real pain in the kiester for Oblivion. I read a bunch of stuff about using Oblivion modsonline and they talked about "Wrye" this and "Bash" that and you have to configure your Wrye with your Bash and get three other programs to do it right and worry about mod conflicts and on and on and on and it all just gave me a headach.

I wish Bethesda would just buy a license for some of the best mods, like OOO for Oblivion, take them through the certification process and sell them for a profit as DLC to console users who cannot figure out how to run a computer. It would be a win win win situation. Mr. Obscuro could make some money, Bethesda could make some money, Sony and Microsoft could make some money and I could finally enjoy OOO on my PS3.

I agree with you about playing Skyrim once without mods. That was my plan also. I haven't yet done the MQ but I have played most of the game so i relaxed a bit about it. I don't use many mods and I'm fairly new at it but there are a few that helped me to enjoy my game a bit more. I got the mod to make horses essential so they couldn't be killed and used it when I had a horse. Now I don't have one so I disabled it. Last night I got the mod that puts an apothecary satchel on each alchemy table of houses you own and that's a sweet little addition; it makes it more convenient.

I am interested in the mod that shows the roads on the map and the mod that organizes the inventory. After that, we'll see but there are always a lot to choose from. I haven't yet seen a mod of a sweet cabin somewhere that would suit me but that'll be coming and then I can go house shopping.

Some mods involve using other programs with them and I haven't explored that yet...no problem with taking it slow. Glad you made the switch to PC....I did that for Fallout New Vegas and I'm so glad I did!

I wonder how many Lokir's Tomb tutorial mods there are. XD

What I use mods for is to make the vanilla game more challenging, fun and exciting.

I found vanilla too easy for my tastes, skills like blocking and restoration are completely uneccessary for me.

So I use mods like Deadly Dragons hardcoe with the upgraded creatures, WiS and PISE v81 to make the game more challenging, and more fun.





He never said SkyUI was a crap mod. It was also released before the creation kit.

I would generally tend to second your idea of playing through at least once without mods so that you can at least experience the game as Bethesda (more or less) intended it. That being said, there are a few mods that I would rate as "must have" that do not detract from the vanilla experience. My #1 pick on that list would be SkyUI. The vanilla game was designed for consoles and does not really take advantage of the capabilities of a keyboard/mouse interface, which SkyUI does very well.

Retexture mods can significantly enhance the look of the game, but at the cost of performance in many cases. Whether that's a good trade-off or not would depend upon your likes/dislikes and the capabilities of your hardware. It shouldn't hurt to try and you can always remove them if it doesn't suit your wants.

I haven't checked to see if it has been released yet, but the #2 mod on my "must have" list is the Unofficial Skyrim Patch (UKSP). It will not add anything to the vanilla game, but it will fix a lot of scripting errors, object placement problems, typos, navmesh placement and that sort of thing, which currently detract from the vanilla game.

Beyond those, your imagination is the only limiting factor on mods. There is a huge modding community out there and it will only get bigger now that the CK has been released. There are a few story-line threads that the vanilla game did not pursue and which you might want to go play with on your own using the CK. Good luck, happy gaming and welcome to the PC gaming community.

Was resonding to this




Even without the CK various not a few not 1 or 2 but over 50 mods have an actual noticeable beneficial effect on your game. Including SkyUI as well as various body/face enhancers (NOT nvde) and texture upgrades. Each of these SHOULD have been in the actual game release day but alas BGS just ported it out and sold it.

Wrye Bash is not that hard and Nexus Mod Manager is a far easier tool albeit more limited. But a novice user won't encounter it's limitations. I started using mods as a young teen, that spoke some broken english. it's not that hard to get started.