Just Bought Skyrim

[Asita]

At minimum though, you should play the game as is first, even if you want to mod it. How can you appreciate what you are "fixing" if you don't know what its like "broken"?

Well, some are glaringly obvious, like the patches to fix bugs/glitches that slipped through post production (A rather glaring example of which can be seen with the Markarth Flags) or UI improvements. Others are less glaring but do more to enhance the experience rather than truly change it, such as Immersive Player Dialogue tweaking the dialogue choices to better fit the setting (KhajiitSpeak takes it a step further for Khajiit PCs).

That said, yes, a player should probably give the original perks a try before trying any of the perk overhaul, or anything along those lines.

 

[loa]

The one that you NEED need is skyUI which turns that horrible garbage not even befitting of consoles into functioning menus. There's also a mod that lest your specifically use the E and wasd keys or somesuch in menu prompts so you're not forced to use the mouse cursor which I consider to be essential because wtf bethesda why isn't this in the game but I forgot its name.

Everything beyond that is just a matter of how far you want to take it.
I'd suggest playing vanilla first, then putting on something like skyrim redone so you can grasp the changes.
Then you can slap on all kinds of crazy stuff like frostfall for survival gear so you can just run in the wild and camp or deadly dragons (I think it was called) for more varied dragons that hugely change the pace of the game up and there's also a giant mod that introduces a ton of new enemies whose name I forgot which you might want.

 

[Tono Makt]

I love fallout. Elder scrolls has never really done it for me but the price was good and I like stealth. I hear stealth in Skyrim is ridiculously OP which appeals to me.

My laptop suggested medium setting so I'm here asking what mods I need that won't melt my PC. I remember some talk of a menu overhaul mod? Any other suggestions? Maybe some fun mods over aesthetics.

No NPC greetings mod [http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/746/?]
Use it when you are tired of NPC chatter about their arrow in the knee and the cloud district.

Fair warning: Every time I try to install this Mod, I get all these pop ups saying "You're not supposed to be in here", even when I'm in Safe Mode.


(bloody Windows 10)

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Ahhh, Skyrim mods, so nostalgic. Last time I played Skyrim, it was on a potato. 600p Skyrim sure was beautiful. I had everything, armor mods, weapon mods, the necessary "adult" mods, house mods, etc. Maybe I should have a crack at it again.

My advice? On your first playthrough, just download the top 20 mods on the Nexus and you'll be good to go.

 

[Dimitriov]

There's also the Unofficial Skyrim Patch

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71214/?

It fixes many bugs and the like left over by the devs.

I would NOT recommend the unofficial patch. Yes it fixes a lot of legitimate bugs, but it also "fixes" a ton of things that don't seem to have been broken.

e.g. it makes it so the thief stone no longer benefits the archery skill, and instead the warrior stone does. Which, admittedly, makes it so each stone benefits the same number of skills. BUT, it seems very likely that that was an intentional tweak so that the thief stone had at least ONE combat skill associated with it.

 

[baddude1337]

There are simply far, far too many mods to count. The best of the basic one have been listed here. I myself have about 240 mods, plus a bunch of texture packs, the new LOD mesh thing and countless other little bits and bobs installed. It was the only thing that made the game playable for me, but now it really is just a fun time running around questing, especially with all the new worldspace ones. It feels larger, grander, and more immersive. Looks great too:

Spoiler

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However, this took quiet literally dozens of houurs of fiddling (and using ENBoost to make the game much more stable), and I honestly can't even remember the names of most of them so I can#t really list too many of my favourite ones.

I will list a few I do quite like and remember however:

Expanded Towns and Cities
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/13608/?

Makes it so the 5 holds that clearly didn't have much effort or thought put into them feel more like the cities they are supposed to be.

Brigandage
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32706/?

Makes the bandits look less like Conan extras and more like actual criminals. Armour it adds looks pretty cool for yourself too.

Space Wiking Dwemer Exoskeletion
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19212/?

Adds a full on steampunk exoskeletion for you to use. Pretty neat if you are RP'ing a tech based character.

Dark Souls Elite Knight Armour
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/22899/?

It's my favourite armour design in any game. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a primary reason for me getting Skyrim on PC (I really don't like almost all of the vanilla weapon or armour designs).

As I said, plenty of mods to choose from. I have taken a lot of screenshots of the game on my Steam account (Mainly tthe hugely changed towns and cities). If you care to browse and wonder what a paticular mod is just ask and I can try to find out for you:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197984929447/screenshots/?appid=72850&sort=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=imagewall

 

[Souplex]

If you just got the game, my advice is to go bare minimum for the first playthrough. There are a lot of fun mods out there but let's be honest, you won't know whether a given failing is from the game or the mod if you don't know how the base-game works first. That said, there are a few major exceptions to this rule. Skyrim Script Extender, for instance, is something you will ultimately want to install because a lot of other mods rely upon it. These other ones would be the ones I consider "essential"

1) SkyUI. Long and short there is that the inventory UI in the base game is an absolute mess in both the figurative and literal senses and SkyUI will save you a major headache.

Comparison:

But you can play with a controller on PC, so why would you subject yourself to unnecessary Mouse and Keyboard controls?

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Any other suggestions? Maybe some fun mods over aesthetics.

here we go. gonna start by giving a thumbs up to some really good ones another user suggested.

SkyUI [http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3863/?]

This is the menu mod you were talking about. It is amazing download it. A lot of mods require this as well to run.

Immersive Armors [http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19733/?]

A lot of new armors are added to the game. 55 according to the mod page. Just a nice mod to get some variety in appearance.

Immersive Weapons [http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27644/?]

Can't have the armor without new weapons. A shit ton of new weapons are added, everything from wooden clubs to spears.

Alternate Start - Live Another Life [http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9557/?]

Great way to roleplay and skip that annoying as hell starting sequence almost completely.

Immersive Patrols [http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12977/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D12977&pUp=1]

As you wonder around, you'll see a lot more patrols of the various factions. Helps immersion as well.

I can confirm that all of these are awesomesauce.

I only installed SkyUI on my third playthrough, and holy crap I wish I had installed it sooner. It gives you actual fucking hotkeys so you can swap armor and weapons instantly instead of having to open up the menu and fuss around with it every time you need to swap weapons. It's also HELLA useful if you're playing with Poisons, as it makes applying poisons way less tedious.

Immersive armors and weapons are also a godsend if you're into smithing and making your own weapons and armor, as it gives you a VAST amount of looks to choose from. For example, my last/current character is a Kahjiit lady and using regular Dwemer heavy armor on her looks ugly as hell. Fortunately, the WitchPlate armor in the immersive armor set makes her look AWESOME. And the "Thresher Maul" warhammer in the immersive weapons mod looks way way cooler than other comparable strength warhammers in the vanilla set.

Immersive patrols is another must-have. Without it, Skyrim REALLY doesn't feel like it's in a civil war at all. With the mod, it REALLY does feel like it, since every once in a while, you'll happen across a large battle between the various factions, and it's really neat.

Live another life is ESSENTIAL to a second playthrough. For the first time you play, the default start is best as it helps get you into the main quest a little faster and has a better difficulty curve. But for any future playthroughs, it gives you way more fun starting points, from starting as a landholder, an army person, locked in a abandoned prison or even shipwrecked in the middle of the frozen sea. It REALLY adds to future runs of the game as it lets you play with different origins, and lets you ignore the main quests and dragons for as long as you want (the main quest will activate if you visit helgen, no sooner)

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Now, as for my own suggestions:

Death alternative:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/45894/?

This. Is. AWESOME. Normally, if you hit zero HP, you just keel over. However, with this mod, you go into bleedout instead, allowing any followers/party members to keep the enemy at bay while you slowly try to recover. If you manage to survive long enough, you'll get back up with sliver of health left, and your "bleedout" health will stay low, meaning that if you get brought to zero again, you'll be more likely to actually bleed out. In the mod menu in your SkyUI, you'll be able to set various options for what happens if you actually do bleed out. Maybe you'll wake up with a bandit having ganked some of your gear and gold (re-buyable at shops, or lootable form the bandit if you can catch him, apparently, this didn't happen to me yet), or maybe a traveler will come and help you for a bit. Also, for balancing, for a while after waking up from bleedout, you will be VERY slow to heal and another bleed out will actually kill you.

The best part about this is that it makes resisting arrest WAY more fun. Because if you get "killed" by guards trying to arrest you, you don't die. You go to prison. With the many health debuffs. At which point you have the choice of serving your time, or trying to escape, knowing full well that you are in no shape to actually fight. It's SUPER neat.

iNeed (food, sleep and drinking needs)
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51473/?

Want the game to be a LOT harder? Want food to be useful? Want to have to eat, sleep and drink or face harsh penalties? This is the best mod I've found for it.

You can tweak a LOT of things about this, including whether or not food spoils over time, how harsh the penalties are for not eating or sleeping, and all sorts of other super nifty little things. And to balance those out, being fully fed or hydrated gives you little bonuses too.

PLUS, there's also a version that includes the possibility of Deadly Diseases. See, the diseases in Vanilla skyrim are a joke. It's a minor penalty, and you can just quaff a generic Cure Disease potion or touch a minishrine and BAM, you're good. If you enable Deadly Diseases, though, they are WAY more debilitating if you let them progress and can kill you, AND to cure them you need to pay good money to a priest/priestess or buy a potion for your SPECIFIC ailment in order to cure it. And it takes TIME to cure once you get healed (like, a day or two per stage of the illness). Oh, and working in tandem with the food mechanic, if you're really starved and you start eating Raw Meat to survive, you might catch Stomach Rot as a new disease.

...I had this from the get-go on my last character, and holy CRAP the opening was hard (I started in a shipwreck up north, and by the time I made it to general civilization, I was starved, with Stomach Rot, and I had to nurse myself back to health. It was AWESOME). Literally the only downside is that making your own "cure disease" potions ends up being useless.

Oh, finally, water is handled very intuitively. In addition to just drinking booze for hydration, you can make (at a tanning rack) or buy waterskins to hold water, which can be refilled for free at wells or certain craftable barrels or for a small fee at inns. Or, you can try refilling from a river source or melting/eating snow from large drifts.

Better stronger food:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/14188/?

SPEAKING of food. This makes Food go from "tiny minuscule healing/MP restore effect" to "healing/MP restore effect that goes on passively for a few seconds, ultimately being way more powerful and useful". AND it's compatible with the iNeed mod above, making food useful not only for staying alive, but also a tactical option that's helpful in combat or after battle healing in general.

Classic Classes and Birthsigns:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16736/?

Another essential for replaying the game. It's a little stupid to get running properly (You have to have the mod disabled, then start the game, save, quit, THEN enable the mod), but it's fantastic. Basically, after a short time of playing (usually a few minutes/kills), you'll be asked to pick a class or to make your own by picking skills you want to start off good in. So if you want to play an alchemist or a smith from the word go, you can pick those skills to begin with and BAM, you can immediately do some fun stuff. It also lets you pick Birthsigns that give you useful little bonuses for the whole game.

And just to keep it balanced, any skills you didn't pick to be good at start off way lower now. This makes you feel more specialized in what you actually want to do in the game from the start, instead of beginning as a "jack of all trades" at the start.

A quality world map:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4929/?

You need this. It actually shows you the goddamn ROADS on the map so you know how to get to places without just trying to go "as the crow flies" though rough terrain because you can't find the right roads.

Balanced Magic:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/2275/?

Makes magic scale better over the game.

Enhanced Follower Aela:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/11450/?

If you do the Companion Questline, this makes one of your best allies in that quest suddenly become WAY more fun. After the end of the quest she becomes not just a regular follower, but a much more useful one, who can be given way more orders, and who also has lots of fun stuff to comment on. Sadly, not all of it is voiced. :s

Kahjiit speak:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/14513/?

Are you playing one of the Cat People? Then you need this mod. It makes all the dialogue choices show up in their way of speaking. So instead of "I want to buy goods" you'll see "This one wants to buy goods. You are a merchant, no?" or something along those lines. It's considerably more fun.

Rebalanced Speech tree:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18919/?

Speech is now no longer a useless skill, hurray! It's more intuitively laid out, and you can use a specific command to "Surrender" to enemies and pay a small fee in gold to make them stop trying to kill you (or, at high levels, make THEM surrender to you so you can loot THEM).

Insteresting NPCs:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8429/?

Another one for future plathroughs. If you play skyrim again and again, it starts to get routine. This one shakes up the routine and add a LOT of new characters and quests to the game, making it feel fresh again. They're all fully voiced and some of the new quests and characters are a TON of fun. Swamp Knight for life!

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Hopefully that's enough fun stuff for you to chew on. I have some other ones installed, but they're either advanced and weird, or purely minor aesthetic stuff, or it's got some weird issues with the DLC (like the Dragons Diversified mod).

EDIT:

OH, and you might want the "Brawl Bugfix":
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24020/?

There's some occasional buggyness about "brawling" nonlethally with people, where you might accidentally kill them, or where a certain NPC you need to practice sparring with in the Companions Quest might bug the hell up and screw up your progression in that questline entirely. This fixes that.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

But you can play with a controller on PC, so why would you subject yourself to unnecessary Mouse and Keyboard controls?

Aiming with a mouse and keyboard is more intuitive, it lets you turn faster, and it lets you use the awesome hotkeys that SkyUI comes with.

I like a controller for a lot of games, but for first person games like this, moue and keyboard just feels WAY more intuitive to me.

 

[RJ 17]

Yes, its up to you to decide if you want to, in my opinion, soil the game, but doesn't mean I cant throw in my 2 cents. At minimum though, you should play the game as is first, even if you want to mod it. How can you appreciate what you are "fixing" if you don't know what its like "broken"?

With all due respect, I came here for a list of mods, not for opinions on whether or not things should be modded. I'll play my game however I damn well please. I bought this on PC specifically because I could mod it. Otherwise I'd have saved myself the trouble and just bought it on console. I don't care about ultra graphics, as evidenced by the fact that I'm playing on a laptop that suggests medium specs for optimal performance. I just want to do fun and potentially silly things and maybe fix the issues everyone knows exist.

If I buy a table and every review says it tilts a bit to the left would you insist I use it that way for awhile before throwing a matchbook under that one leg? Or paint it to match my d?cor? Let those of us who want to do something that impacts you in exactly 0 ways do what we want to do without having to hear about how it's wrong in your eyes.

I still think you should play the game first as is, then figure out what you want to change. You wont know it tilts if you don't try it as is first. Then when it does, you can figure out how big a matchbook you need. Plus why buy a table if you are just going to turn it into a chair anyways?

You can do whatever you want in your single-player game, I am not arguing that, and despite what it may seem, I honestly just want you to enjoy the game as much as possible, but it hurts to see a game I think is amazing as is being so wildly altered, especially without thinking about it.

Best not to let them get to you. Just so you know: I completely understand where you're coming from. Your point is perfectly valid, however since we're dealing with a subjective matter, that unfortunately means that your opposition's point is equally valid.

The fact of the matter is the Bethesda fully encourages the modding scene with its games, that's why it's so easy to mod them. Hell, they freely distribute modding tools and tell their fanbase to go nuts.

Skyrim is an open-world sandbox game, and mods can be viewed as toys to play with inside that sandbox. Sure, you can build a sandcastle with your hands, or you can use various other tools to assist in doing that. As such, you shouldn't let it get to you that someone's buying Skyrim specifically so they can mod the crap out of it. That's just how they want to play in the sandbox that they bought. Since Bethesda doesn't care about such behavior - and in fact encourages it - then you shouldn't care about it either. Just keep enjoying the game the way YOU like to enjoy it, don't worry about what other people are doing with it.

Edit: <spoiler=Also: the OP should totally get one of the breast and butt jiggle physics mods out there....can't believe no one has mentioned that yet. :3>To be clear: that was a joke...or was it? dun-dun-DUNNNNN!

 

[pookie101]

the only must have on pc is skyui the rest are really pick and choose

 

[MHR]

the only must have on pc is skyui the rest are really pick and choose

Yes, this and unofficial patch are all that's critical. The base Skyrim game is actually decent. It's the crashes, broken quests, and horribly consolized UI that take the most away from it.

Besides a mod that stops small souls from taking up large soul gems, this is all I'm running to my knowledge. I made the mistake once of trying to install a ridiculously huge recommended mod pack, but the install process was so convoluted and extensive that I found it impossible and stopped.

 

[pookie101]

the only must have on pc is skyui the rest are really pick and choose

Yes, this and unofficial patch are all that's critical. The base Skyrim game is actually decent. It's the crashes, broken quests, and horribly consolized UI that take the most away from it.

Besides a mod that stops small souls from taking up large soul gems, this is all I'm running to my knowledge. I made the mistake once of trying to install a ridiculously huge recommended mod pack, but the install process was so convoluted and extensive that I found it impossible and stopped.

personally ive found the unofficial patch isnt something that is required but each to their own.

the only advice for playing skyrim i can give is to only really accept quests when you are actually going to do them, the scripting engine has a nasty habit of forgetting quests that have been in your quest log for a while making the quest uncompleteable.

 

[Tono Makt]

Fair warning: Every time I try to install this Mod, I get all these pop ups saying "You're not supposed to be in here", even when I'm in Safe Mode.


(bloody Windows 10)

That's not right. It is a very small mod that only changes one variable. That is as easily can be changed via game console. There should be no pop ups whatsoever.

Here's an example of what I get whenever I try to install that mod:

 

[Asita]

Ah, forgot something. Do you have Dawnguard and/or Dragonborn? If so, you should be aware that the content for them starts early. Ridiculously early, in fact. The Dawnguard DLC in particular introduces random vampire attacks in the Hold capitals starting at level 6 and continuing until you complete the DLC (which you can't even start until level 10). Which is troublesome considering that they are quite capable of killing the unique NPCs in there (and death for them is rather permanent). It's troublesome at the best of times, but especially so at low levels and ends up throwing too much at you at once because it pretty much starts a the first main DLC questline at about the same time as the core game's main questline starts in earnest and probably before you've so much as touched any of the faction questlines. Because of this, if you have the DLC I'd recommend a mod like Timing is Everything (Requires SkyUI, Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn), or Dawnguard Delayed Start. I personally wouldn't recommend disabling them entirely, as I think that the vampire attacks add a much needed sense of urgency, but I do think that they need to start well after you've started to become formidable in your own right.

 

[Amigastar]

i also tried Skyrim out after having it in Steam for some time now.
What can i say i love it, really great game now i look forward to the next title from the Elder Scrolls Series.

Also the Modding Community is so huge and high quality here, it feels almost like being in a big Toy Store as a kid and picking what you want.

 

[CeeBod]

Skyrim is trying to drag me back in yet again! I don't think I'll ever stop re-playing this game - time for another clean re-install and modding goodness setup fairly soon, as I'm finding myself window-shopping for mods again. In my opinion, it's a reasonably decent base game that I'd have probably played through once or maybe twice at the most if it wasn't for mods. Modding craziness has extended its lifespan to my current Steam playing time of 1,493 hours! As a sandbox that you can mess about in it's pretty damned awesome!

And for anyone that hasn't seen it before, here's the Ultimate Skyrim video showcasing some modding madness! -

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I definitely second the Immersive Armors/Weapons mods, because the vanilla stuff isn't terribly varied and there's a lot of interesting stuff to be found in these. Behold, the Crimson Pirate:

Spoiler

Also, I recommend finding sound replacers like Sounds of Skyrim and Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, to give the ears a little something to enjoy as well. And if you get bored wandering around Skyrim itself, you should look for the following:

- Falskaar
- Wyrmstooth
- The Forgotten City

All three of these are expansive new areas, fully voice-acted with multiple quests.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

OK here is what I reccomendPlease forgive me for not giving links but what I list here should be googleable)

Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim: Adds a metric shitton of spells to the game, everything from summoning bridges to tornadoes.

Either "Realistic Lighting Overhaul" or "Enhanced Lights and FX": Neither of these will put much more strain on your computer and they will make the game look MUCH much better.

Skyrim Project Optimization: Improves the occlusion culling(rendering of things you don't see) inside dungeons and such will improve performance literally NO reason not to install this.

OneTweak: Requies SKSE fixes a double mouse bug that pretty much no other mod fixes.

SkyUI-Away: the crafting menus for SkyUI are TRASH, ESPECIALLY if you have the fantastic "immersive weapons" and "immersive armors" mods installed, I would reccomend activating this mod's override for the crafting menus but nothing else.

Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice: required by some mods without voice actors, does nothing on its own really.

unofficial unrelenting force patch: Here I will actually provide a link because its awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS7CcTLdzLo

AutoSave Manager: that's all its called.

Random Vampire Attacks in Towns Disabled: I generally install this one because I hate named NPC's getting taken out because the game spawned a Vampire master ultra lord in town at lv 10.

Everything up there should be directly googleable verbatim.