Necessary Mods for a "Playable" Skyrim?

[Tingz0r]

I'm wondering which mods everyone uses to make their game more stable, accessible, and all-around more playable than the vanilla package.

My latest attempt at playing through with some mods ended when my loading times reached astronomical levels. I restarted with no mods whatsoever, and it solved the loading issue, but the game is a 6/10, at its best. Despite it recommending ultra settings, I still toned everything down to about medium quality. This hasn't changed anything. I put up with a couple of crashes, but I lost it when a guard walked between my mace and a cultist. 40 gold? Listen, idiot, I kill trolls on sight. I'd sooner shove 40 gold up your General Tulli-ass one coin at a time than pay you for running in front of my swinging weapon.

So, if you know about a mod that you could consider to be vanilla-friendly that fixes anything from AI to loading times, I want to hear about it.

[legoless]

I don't even use the unofficial patches for Skyrim, since they're a bit overreaching. The only truly vanilla-friendly mods I can think of are "Run For Your Lives" and "When Vampires Attack", which attempt to stop the AI from engaging in hopeless battles and getting themselves killed.

[Dalos]

I don't even use the unofficial patches for Skyrim, since they're a bit overreaching.

I agree it, fixing all the bugs Bethesda couldn't be bothered with, is a huge & daunting task but not overreach imo.
BTW, it's been a single patch, Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch ( USLEEP ( love the acronym )) now.
Tingzor, if you want a more stable game, use the patch.

The only truly vanilla-friendly mods...

I hate that phrase!
I think it smacks of judgemental elitism.

It's my opinion that improving textures, fixing bugs or adding elements that fit Skyrim's lore are not unfriendly to a vanilla experience.
For example, modding in the 'Death Star' for one of Skyrim's moons would be an element not in line with lore, adding some armors, like those in Immersive Armors, is.
Even Bethesda realized the need to upgrade textures and released a Hi-Res DLC.
Various mods, like aMidianBorn Book of Silence, continue to improve Skrim's textures.
And is there really an argument against fixing game bugs?

Me, I'm using an older build of S.T.E.P. Extended but that's only because 1.I'm lazy and 2. waiting for S.T.E.P. v2.3.0.

If anyone wants to limit their 'vanilla' experience to a buggy game with lower resolution and limited to the elements the developers had the time and money to include, have at it but please stop with the pronouncements about what is or isn't 'vanilla'.

TY, carry on.

EDIT And I completely forgot about the upcoming release of Skyrim Remastered. Looks like lots of visual bells and whistles are being added by the developer.
Makes me think Skyrim's original looks were in fact dictated by some combination of available time & money and not some vision the developer's had of what the game should look like.

[Crawldragon]

I actually don't use that many mods. I have a bunch downloaded but I never activate them. It's like I'm a mod hoarder.

I do use the Unofficial Skyrim Patches because you'd be surprised what infuriating oversights the developers made on the initial release. In Helgen Keep there's a table that's halfway inside a book shelf which renders some loot impossible to acquire, and they have yet to fix it in any of the official updates. For the sake of my own sanity, I needed that patch.

Other than that, I highly recommend Sky UI if you're a PC gamer because it makes the menus way less annoying, and A Matter Of Time because it's completely awesome, and when you're neck-deep in an immersive game world it's really handy having a real-world clock to remind you to get up and eat once in a while. Miscellaneous mods I've installed include Real Bears, Real Foxes, Real Wolves, Slof's Horses, &c to make the wildlife prettier, and Robert's Male and Female to make the PCs prettier.

EDIT: forgot a couple

I did download a texture swapper called Skyrim HD because honestly the vanilla high-def graphics are great but I was blown away when I first tried the user-generated HD mods. The only mod I use that substantially changes gameplay is Simply Knock, which allows you to simply knock on locked doors and people may let you in. It makes any quest where you have to talk to someone holed up in a locked house way less of a headache.

[legoless]

The only truly vanilla-friendly mods...

I hate that phrase!
I think it smacks of judgemental elitism.

[...]

If anyone wants to limit their 'vanilla' experience to a buggy game with lower resolution and limited to the elements the developers had the time and money to include, have at it but please stop with the pronouncements about what is or isn't 'vanilla'.

I'm not sure you know what that term means. Vanilla = base game. There's absolutely nothing wrong with looking for a base game experience, and adding mods (or even DLC) detracts from that. This is a fact. It seems to me the only one making pronouncements about what qualifies as 'vanilla-friendly' is you; third party content mods are in no way vanilla and its a little ridiculous to claim so based on their subjective lore-friendliness.

The reason I said USLEEP is overreaching is because it does more than just fix bugs, and therefore detracts from the base game experience. That's what this thread is about?

[Tingz0r]

Yes, I'm not looking for a debate on what you consider lore-friendly. I believe I asked if anyone knows of any mods that fix something clearly wrong with the game and are friendly to the official game experience. I consider Immersive Armors to be a pretty big change, and I haven't tried USLEEP because it does appear to do more than just fix stuff. Run for Your Lives and A Matter of Time are more along the lines of what I'm looking for.

I'm gonna be out of town this week and I was hoping to see some suggestions to use when I get back.

[Dalos]

... Vanilla = base game. ...
It seems to me the only one making pronouncements about what qualifies as 'vanilla-friendly' is you;

Pronouncement - noun - a formal or authoritative announcement or declaration.

... The only truly vanilla-friendly mods I can think of are "Run For Your Lives" and "When Vampires Attack" ...

Got it!
Vanilla-friendly is what you say it is.

Maybe I should have said 'are not unfriendly to a vanilla-like experience.' instead of "...are not unfriendly to a vanilla experience."

Cutting Room Floor

Crawldragon, are you adverse to UI and HUD mods?

[MetaCthulhu]

I can't vouch for any of these mods personally, but they seem to be kind of like what you want:

HIALGOBOOST GPU UPGRADE. This one is supposed to improve performance.
Lore-Based Loading Screens. This one should help break the monotony of the loading screens a bit.
Quaility World Map (with roads). This one is just a nice little mod that makes it easier to plot your course.
OneTweak. This one takes care of a couple of Skyrim's Alt+Tab issues.
Purity. This ones a bit more iffy as far as vanilla goes, but it doesn't affect gameplay per say so I thought I'd leave it in.

[Crawldragon]

Crawldragon, are you adverse to UI and HUD mods?

The two that I mentioned are pretty unintrusive. SkyUI arguably affects gameplay a little bit because it lets you do more with the menus, but I'd be completely comfortable with calling it vanilla-friendly.

I don't actually play vanilla, mind you; Simply Knock and Wearable Lanterns make my game non-vanilla by default, but they do make it "more playable" at the same time.

[Nord85]

For AI, I use Duel. It seems to make enemies a bit smarter. The mod's been bashed in some places but in my experience it does work.

My biggest peeve with Skyrim, though, was loot scaling and how easy the game was (even though both issues were very much less annoying than in vanilla Oblivion). So nowadays I use Skyrim Unleashed's NPC and item plug-ins. It doesn't add anything new, but basically makes loot unleveled and makes the level scaling much, much harder than in vanilla. At early levels, one or two hits can kill and the combat stays hard at Adept level up to about early 30ies levels. Oh, and the unscaled loot is balanced out by making prices much harder on the wallet. It's a must for me.

Skytweaks is another must. It lets you tinker with so many variables that it's an invaluable tool.

Lastly, Deadly Dragons' Loremonger version. Dragon types are vanilla, but very hard to beat.

As far as I know, none of above affects loading times or performance. If a slight performance boost is needed, I recommend the following: Low Res Particle and Flora, STEAM, Skyrim Performance PLUS etc. They helped a lot with my previous computer, which had freezing problems when playing a particle-heavy area such as the volcanic fields.

Lastly, there are a few good lighting mods. Of course, those do affect vanilla experience by e.g. making dungeons and nights darker, but IMO that's a change to a better direction. Personally I've used Realistic Lighting Overhaul and nowadays RCRN AE. Neither affects performance.

[noobishlord]

The Unofficial patches are just gold, even if you get no other mods, just having so many bugs fixed is a good thing. And if I recall correctly, the Unofficial patches have "possessive corpses" as part of it, where fallen weapons are still considered to be part of the bandit or what-have-you that "dropped" them. This helps decrease save file bloat, which is always a problem.

SkyUI is also pretty handy to have. The base UI is fine once you get used to it, sure, but SkyUI really helps bring it out.

And while it's also a bit breaking, Alpha Horses from the Workshop really makes horses worth it. They're essential, so you're not blowing away coin on them, and they run farther and a bit faster. Very handy to have if (like me,) you also mod out fast traveling.


And for the not so serious, there's Sheogoroth's line of "helpful" loading screen tip replacers, and KhajiitSpeak for when playing as a Khajiit. I REALLY recommend KhajiitSpeak. It's just so much fun.