Recommend... something?

[Swanky]

Okay... so after years of just fiddling around with Skyrim I finally got play through its entirety along with many sidequests, addons, and quest mods. Some of it was great, some of it was fun, some of it was intense, some of it was... still buggy. Not that it isn't expected. Now I am looking for a bit of new input in form of quest / new lands / dungeon and/or late game challenge mod recommendations. Please note whether the mod is lorefriendly or not.

 

So far I have played through:

Forgotten Dungeons

Adds tons of lorefriendly dungeons around Skyrim and its official DLC. Emphasis is on quantity, not quality. Many of its dungeons are bland. They work and they're fully navmeshed from what I could see. Some of them seem to be unleveled or have some other changes which resulted me being confused as to why Draugr could shout Flamebreath and the like in one of the dungeons (that was particularly brutal even at high level). Some dungeons will be very unbalanced due to how many stuff is lying around if you use some kind of economy / scarcity overhaul. Overall I'd say this is about 5/10.

 

EasierRidersDungeonPack

Only adds a handful of dungeons but these are usually very long and/or challenging. Beautifully crafted, too, although a few cells could have been more densely populated. Some also tell their own stories. Lore friendly. 8.5/10

 

Evil Mansion

This one adds a big mansion north of Morthal. Of course, it's reminiscent of that Resident Evil 1 mansion and you should probably have base experience with that game to find your way around the multitude of corridors. Aside from that the use of enemies is good, combat is rather tough - recommendation is around level 30, which will probably work depending how you're geared - and there are probably one or two jump scares left intact. There are no quest markers and one early puzzle is especially confusing, as is the final switch to transform the mansion into a player home. Aside from that this is one of my favourite dungeon crawler mods so far. Pretty lorefriendly if you can stomach repurposed monsters. 8/10

 

Falskaar

Was one of the earlier New Lands mods. It's fully voiced and has that backwater kind of island feel to it. Everything is a bit slower and more drawn out. You need to have patience during the cutscenes, especially towards the end as they tend to take a while. I had one big bug that I'm not completely sure how it resolved itself, I went back after I had done all the other quest mods I have and things seemed to have resolved themselves, no bugs otherwise. I also got serious issues with using the boat for travelling to and from Falskaar which would lock the character in place indefinitly, unless using egc or waiting for an hour, which then results in getting yanked back the the place about half an hour realtime (!) later, potentially causing big issues (I got locked out of Clockwork Castle for example). Strange ending, lore friendly. Since there is no support for the mod anymore and things will likely not get fixed, I cannot recommend this one. 4/10 overall, would be 7/10 if the issues got fixed.

 

The Forgotten City

This one is also one of the older quest mods ported relatively early in SSE's life cycle. That said, the original story holds up wonderfully, as are the possibilites of solving the mystery. Doesn't have a lot quest markers and the concept could have done a bit more indepth in some side areas, but then again that's Fallout style of wishthinking (as some of the better New Vegas mods go very indepth in how you can approach a problem). However, getting the concept of the mod to work at all in this engine is probably a miracle in itself so I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. Unfortunatly, not a lot of replay value since the mystery can only be solved once unless you really roleplay your way through, and I had a nasty bug of its music not resolving itself upon leaving, so I had to disable the mod after completion. 7/10

 

Wyrmstooth

Get roped into an extensive dragon hunt alongside a team of "specialists". Not that any can hold a candle to you depending on how strong you already are. Mostly lore friendly, zany humor, beautiful world building and a good amount of stuff to explore make this a fun quest mod. Not a lot of new dialogue but what's there is well done. Just don't expect a lot of exposition. Some stuff is pretty well hidden and / or tied to progression. 8.5/10

 

Beyond Bruma

Bruma is a big New Lands addition that I had surprisingly few issues with (a feat that seemingly few people have achieved). It doesn't have an overarching story that other quest mods do, but it has a lot of quests to do and some beautifully crafted new dungeons to explore. Pretty much every NPC is voiced and you can just have some neat conversations. There's a good bit of stuff to do overall and if you aren't in a hurry or on the search for the next best gear piece, this one is for you. 9/10

 

Beyond Reach

When I first entered the Reach it was a feeling of rejection. That feeling persisted, for a different reason however, and that reason is a very dark and disgusting storyline that's enthralling at the same time. Combat is on the tougher side and you should either be resistent to screen blur or turn it off with the amount of poison being thrown at you. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff isn't voiced yet or up to the standard of other mods technically (the actors themselves did a pretty good job overall), the map is mirrored east/west and north/south and you need to play pretty close to the objectives to make sure you don't bug out. Not exactly sure how lore friendly the depiction of Daedra is. Overall I'd say 6.5/10 until its shortcomings get fixed, 9/10 otherwise.

 

DarkEnd

Okay. No big story here either. You're being thrown into a deserted island area with very tough enemies to test your mettle against. Few optional side areas, intially confusing layouts and yet a  very fun and immersive challenge. Not strictly lore friendly but it doesn't stray from the world design by adding a laser gatling. It's a skyrimized version of Dark Souls, if that makes sense. Had some slight performce drops in its overworld Pharos. Highly recommended. 9/10.

 

 

So... which quest mods can you recommend? Which of the dungeon mods are your favorite, and what mods do you use to make Skyrim a challenging place?

[somethingsomething123]

You probably saw this recommendation coming: Vigilant

[Swanky]

46 minutes ago, somethingsomething123 said:

You probably saw this recommendation coming: Vigilant

Actually, I didn't. What's it about?

[tavi2018]

Maids II and the 2 Rigmor mods add some interesting storylines. 

[arshesney]

Hammet's Dungeon Pack are much better than forgotten's (and difficult, be prepared), the mod lists another one from the same author as required, but it really isn't. Vigilant is an awesome mod, be sure to also download the translation and voice acting for it.

Then, maybe Legacy of the Dragonborn? Aside the "collect everything" main feature there's a new guild, the Archaeology Guild, that lets you plan expedition to hunt lost treasures. There are also a few quest related to the museum. And an airship as your home.

[somethingsomething123]

2 hours ago, Swanky said:

Actually, I didn't. What's it about?

You can join the Vigilant's of Stendarr. The main quest is divided into 4 acts and revolves around a plot by Molag Bal. While the first act is more skyrim style all the other acts are more dark souls style in terms of level design. Player choices matter a lot. It has very good dialogue and voice acting in English. The act 4 is the main reason people love this mod as it is heavily inspired by Dark souls. Many new weapons, spells and armors. The mod goes very deep into lore (it tries to fill in a lot of missing gaps in existing lore and does it very well) and is super believable. Difficulty can be adjusted via its own MCM

 

As a side note: If you play this mod then you may find a weird NPC at times who tells you to poke a guy with a needle for no good reason. Don't do that as it will skip the first 3 acts and take u to Act 4 directly.

[Swanky]

So I've looked into some of  the recommendations.

Hammet's Dungeon Pack: the requirement is... weird? And that island looks kind of bland on first look. Is that island good by itself?

Vigilant really does look interesting. I also noticed two successor mods to it, Glenmoril and Unslaad. Are they worth it as well?

Rigmor of Bruma... I haven't been too keen on using followers in Skyrim. I usually like to travel alone, although that is partly due to how people behave in a fight, and how bland they are usually written. Serana was a bit of a change of pace. Not exactly a Willow (New Vegas players may know), but going into the right direction. Judging by the comment section it seems both very inquisitive and buggy in terms of how it wants to be played. I did use Vilja in Oblivion for a playthrough, how's the word about the Skyrim version?

Legacy of the Dragonborn, I've gone over this like a dozen times. What puts me off about it is the amount of compatibility patches it requires. How does it work in script heavy setups? How far does it reach into the original quests of Skyrim?

 

 

Also, does someone have experience with Project AHO and could leave a few words about it?

[Gukahn]

2 minutes ago, somethingsomething123 said:

You can join the Vigilant's of Stendarr. The main quest is divided into 4 acts and revolves around a plot by Molag Bal. While the first act is more skyrim style all the other acts are more dark souls style in terms of level design. Player choices matter a lot. It has very good dialogue and voice acting in English. The act 4 is the main reason people love this mod as it is heavily inspired by Dark souls. Many new weapons, spells and armors. The mod goes very deep into lore (it tries to fill in a lot of missing gaps in existing lore and does it very well) and is super believable. Difficulty can be adjusted via its own MCM

 

As a side note: If you play this mod then you may find a weird NPC at times who tells you to poke a guy with a needle for no good reason. Don't do that as it will skip the first 3 acts and take u to Act 4 directly.

I started Vigilant Yesterday, well more like checking if the new addition to my load order fucked anything up xD

so far it's really nice and even the first act had a WTF Moment..

@Swanky

If you get it definitely download the overhaul packs for it also or you get to see some.. inbreedlooking npc´s in your game. 

 

I would recommend M´rissi. A Follower Mod with a very nice storyline, also choices matter in this one and you can get 2 real Endings (also a bit of Thalmor smashing, everyone loves that.)

She has also a customizer and Bodyreplacer, if you are like me and not into furry you can turn her into a normal cat girl looking character (Which is still "Lore" Friendly as it is explained why she looks who she looks later on. ) Or you can go full furry if you into it.. I would they if you download her, stick to the original voice actress as you can choose from 2. Only my opinion but she did a better job and her voice suits the character better.

 

Also Project AHO if you are into Easter Eggs, not a perfect questmod but an interesting one.. But only something i would play once as it is extremely lore.. Fucking one of your rewards at the end.. i won't tell to much i only say doctor who meets star wars.
Its Dwemer oriented also.

 

On of the smaller but still very good quest mods i ever played is Maelstrom

Its basically a pretty dark Dungeon Mod with a Quest Attached and with the option of either a very unique follower or a lacking boss fight at the end. The Midboss tho.. turn every defeat mod off before you get in. some of the mobs are variants added by the author and i don't know if they would fuck things up. The Mod has a couple of nice Puzzles and Riddles and lots of things to read. Its heavenly inspiratied by norse mythologie. 

 

And if you want it lore friendly and BIG go Interesting NPC`s. Not only do you get a ton of new NPC´s in your towns, you also get Quests! Voiced Quests! And some of them are attached to each other, mentioning each other and tell storys about one another (sadly the Followers you get with it aren't really aware of each other so its more an atmospheric touch) But he backgroundstorys of them.. I love to talk to them just to hear the storys they tell.

 

Good Partner of it is citizens of tamriel but it doesn't add much except character story's.

 

[arshesney]

16 minutes ago, Swanky said:

So I've looked into some of  the recommendations.

Hammet's Dungeon Pack: the requirement is... weird? And that island looks kind of bland on first look. Is that island good by itself?

 

No idea really: it isn't an hard requirement, it's just advertising, no dependency. I have the dungeons installed without the island.

 

Legacy is fine in heavy setups (at least I've never had issues from it and I have many, many mods loaded), most of the script load is for sorting museum items and that happens on demand, when you're in the gallery. It is also an esm (good for keeping references count down).

Patches are needed for items and quests displays from other mods, but you're correct, there are a lot of them. It doesn't change vanilla quests, just listens for completions to enable displays, but it does add special excavation points in every dungeon and collectible items around (not that intrusive, excavation points are usually one per dungeon and in niches or corners without an original purpose).

It is one of those mods that you either love or hate, if you like the idea of collecting stuff to display as trophies give it a try, there's an alternate start scenario that dumps you right in the action as museum prospector.

[Swanky]

Good to know, I guess I'll give Hammet's dungeons a chance then.

Legacy is hm... probably not my style, but thank you for mentioning it regardless, someone else will surely find this information useful.

 

@Gukahn thank you for mentioning Interesting NPCs! I haven't included those in the list up top but you are right of course, it's a fantastic mod for people into stories and RPG. Haven't done a lot of quests for them but they add a lot to the world. Their behavior can be a bit buggy at times when they tell a story and run out of the building, however. iNPCs has a permanent spot on my LO.

[Swanky]

Okay, I installed Clockwork, Project AHO and Vigilant to see how they fare. Clockwork starts out damn spooky, but I got yanked out of it by some really bad Falskaar script (softlocking Clockwork in the progress because there's no way back). For that reason I'm un-recommending Falskaar.

 

Hammets will replace Forgotten Dungeons after I'm done with these and potentially the Vigilant successor mods depending how I like Vigilant and I'm reevaluating my LO. Please keep sharing recommendations, since I'm sure other ppl are also looking for good content mods themselves.

[tavi2018]

Another good recommendation is Night Cowl of The Nocturnal.

[Gukahn]

32 minutes ago, Swanky said:

Okay, I installed Clockwork, Project AHO and Vigilant to see how they fare. Clockwork starts out damn spooky, but I got yanked out of it by some really bad Falskaar script (softlocking Clockwork in the progress because there's no way back). For that reason I'm un-recommending Falskaar.

 

Hammets will replace Forgotten Dungeons after I'm done with these and potentially the Vigilant successor mods depending how I like Vigilant and I'm reevaluating my LO. Please keep sharing recommendations, since I'm sure other ppl are also looking for good content mods themselves.

 

Make sure to grab the SoS Patch for AHO. The Modder uses sometimes specific Gimmicks and they don't go well with SoS.

 

Timing is Everything.. so you will not get flooded with Sidequests and DLC starts once you return to regular skyrim

 

More or less not really Play content, more gimmicks:

 

Witchunter Spells are nice for 2 Handed Characters, they are not so overpowered except the conjuration ones whom i find pretty broken.

 

For atmospheric Music i recommend Fantasy Soundtrack Project, play since for ever with it.. (But i might switch sometime soon. )

 

No NPC Greetings to reduce the greeding radius. A Lifesaver for many, many, many npc´s.. As an interesting npc lover like me, i think you already have such a mod tho 

 

Immersive Creatures. I mean. Goblins... Who does not love themself a bit of Goblin Smashing? Also the Giant Variants are awesome.

Wolfs are kinda.. Well they are Wolfs. skyrim fucked them up to begin with so they are annoying xD Could have been really cool.. turned to shit.

 

Become a  Bard. (i don't have to say anything.. Everyone knows this mod.)

 

 

 

 

[Swanky]

2 hours ago, tavi2018 said:

Another good recommendation is Night Cowl of The Nocturnal.

 

Why is that?

 

 

 

Aren't Immersive Creatures prone to crashing? I'd also need that compatiblity patch for MNC. I'm using Apocalypse Spells right now, haven't really dug into those but from what I've seen I'm not super impressed. Also, yes, I saw AHO needing that patch because... cyborg orcs? O.o

[Gukahn]

14 minutes ago, Swanky said:

Aren't Immersive Creatures prone to crashing? I'd also need that compatiblity patch for MNC. I'm using Apocalypse Spells right now, haven't really dug into those but from what I've seen I'm not super impressed. Also, yes, I saw AHO needing that patch because... cyborg orcs? O.o

I Think Only if youuse too many of the random encounter events (What is a shame.. I saw Giants in Stormcloak Armor, that was cool.) I think you can allow 2, i keep it safe and use only 1 at the moment, and if you do more spawns per encounter. if you regulate it in the mcn it is quite stable. I never had a Crash with it. (True the rare encounter where i get to fight against an Skeleton Army are.. So Rare it only happened once.. And those fuckers kicked my ass even with 2 companions) But maybe because i am to careful. I  have to read into it again once i finished my run on vigilant. xD

Only real reason why i wanted Immersive Creatures where Reiklings in skyrim. The Mod who does that on its own came out too late, i already had everything ready and fixed the Mesh Problems i had.. Would be kind of a waste + i don't want to start over again.

 

 

Yeah , Never encountered cyborg Orcs  but  Dark Elves.. 2 of them. The Author who worked in AHO does have a knack for something like this. I read that his other mod does need an sos Patch too. I think i read something in a forum like "what does they have against dicks?" xD

The only thing you won't see are 2 Mech Hands..

 

I use Apocalypse too.. Not for the impressive magic tbh. It has some convenient Spells like a kind of Mark and Teleport.  + no enemy i encounter use them. I never got to a point where i used the Expert or Master Spells of each school so i could be surprised if i ever do use them.

 

 

[Swanky]

The thing about Apocalypse Spells is that most of them are very hard to come by, especially the the higher tier variants. I'm using scarcity which makes rare loot even more rare and also affects vendors so there's the change they will only sell the crappy stuff. Will have to check later before I decide whether I want them or not. On the plus, they work together rather well with Ordinator.

 

I also just finished...

 

Clockwork

It's spooky, especially the beginning. If the Gilded were fleshed (heh) out a little more it could've easily been nightmare stuff. The giant house with travel options to every major city is neat and I think the VA was done by machine learning? Pretty impressive. The three trips down the hatch were less enjoyable even if you do visit a different part of  the dungeon every time. I also wished the spooky stuff was more intense in the latter part of the story. Still, no bugs. 7.5/10

[tavi2018]

17 hours ago, Swanky said:

 

Why is that?

 

 

Night Cowl of the Nocturnal is a quest and new lands mod suited best for a stealth-based character. The quest itself is somewhat hard, rather interesting, and takes you to a wide variety of places (Hammerfell, Akavir), which look very different and exotic compared to regular Skyrim. If only the voice acting was a little better, this mod could be the quality of an official DLC.

[monsta88]

For a new game, I'd suggest Amorous Adventures. It adds a new flavor to several old quests and adds a lot of new ones as well.

[monsta88]

17 hours ago, Swanky said:

Aren't Immersive Creatures prone to crashing? I'd also need that compatiblity patch for MNC.

 

It can cause crashes, yes. If you have MNC as well, make sure you disable the baby animals (in IC MCM), that was one of the crashes. Another may have related to deers, but I don't remember clearly. I think I had to disable it in Creature FW or something like that (don't quote me on this, it's been a while, I'm not even sure IC has anything to do with deers) .

[monsta88]

On 3/12/2021 at 8:48 PM, Swanky said:

Legacy of the Dragonborn, I've gone over this like a dozen times. What puts me off about it is the amount of compatibility patches it requires. How does it work in script heavy setups? How far does it reach into the original quests of Skyrim?

 

The compatibility patches are there so you can get displays in the museum. For example Wyrmstooth gets an alcove to display 15-20 items from the island.

 

The museum itself is very heavy on scripts, but only when you use them. Other than that it is not especially heavy. I always have this in my load order with several complementing mod. Currently my game has 290ish plugins loaded and it runs without much issues (i9 9900K, 32GB ram, 1080Ti video card). My main (only?) issue is the SMP physics going wild sometimes.

 

This mod has several own quests with new areas. If you like to collect things, it is a good mod for you.

[Gukahn]

1 hour ago, monsta88 said:

 

It can cause crashes, yes. If you have MNC as well, make sure you disable the baby animals (in IC MCM), that was one of the crashes. Another may have related to deers, but I don't remember clearly. I think I had to disable it in Creature FW or something like that (don't quote me on this, it's been a while, I'm not even sure IC has anything to do with deers) .

Don't think it where the baby animals. I encountered them in the beginning.. Wolfs at least where safe but so annoying i turned it off regardless. If it was Deers.. Maybe i can't tell never encountered them to begin with. What i did was turning all additional spawns off and regulate the random events to 1, same with the random encounters. 20 hours game time with one and 15 with the other save and the only times i crash are mostly my fault for getting to hasty with allignment editing. Could be wrong tho.

Only problem i  have with it is that it doesn't use Baka or animal SoS and most of the meshes they get don't go well with newer animations

 

What i think could be the biggest issue with it is that your game hase to load too many enemys at once or npc´s as a whole if you don't regulate it. not sure tho i am happy it works at the moment.

 

 

1 hour ago, monsta88 said:

For a new game, I'd suggest Amorous Adventures. It adds a new flavor to several old quests and adds a lot of new ones as well.

It's not bad and impressive. Got to see vanilla Sidequests i never had done before. But nothing i would play more then maybe twice. A bit cringy for my taste ^^ The npc´s behave like sex is the most important thing for them, even the ones who really shouldn't.. But i liked what they did with Morthal. The weird Questline around Ingrod really fits the image of creepy backwater Village and turned one of the more poorly done vanilla npc at least a little more interesting.

[monsta88]

29 minutes ago, Gukahn said:

Don't think it where the baby animals

The babies definitely were the cause in my game. And it was hard to figure out, because as in your game, they worked most of the time. But sometimes they crashed the game anyway. Since I disabled the additional baby spawn, I had 0 crashes which would have indicated anything related to IC.

[monsta88]

32 minutes ago, Gukahn said:

But i liked what they did with Morthal.

It was done by one person.

And yeah, Morthal is one of my favorites. I also like Jenassa's storyline. The Riften one is also very good. The Farkas (or Vilkas) story is really funny, makes me laugh every time.

[Gukahn]

22 minutes ago, monsta88 said:

The babies definitely were the cause in my game. And it was hard to figure out, because as in your game, they worked most of the time. But sometimes they crashed the game anyway. Since I disabled the additional baby spawn, I had 0 crashes which would have indicated anything related to IC.

Ok good to know now for sure that i will keep them disabled thank you ?

 

17 minutes ago, monsta88 said:

It was done by one person.

And yeah, Morthal is one of my favorites. I also like Jenassa's storyline. The Riften one is also very good. The Farkas (or Vilkas) story is really funny, makes me laugh every time.

 

Janessa's was cool yeah and it was one of the storylines that make me do a vanilla quest i did maybe once but forgot about its existence xD

[Swanky]

Finished up

 

Project AHO

Had to install two patches to fix a couple of bugs and one nasty CTD around the mod. Full DLC may be a confident label but it's not far off. Plenty of stuff to do, good voice acting, and thank god for the Fallout Style nuclear options. The sidequests felt pretty basic (the ones that I did), but they gave insight into the enclave as well. Not being able to free the slaves after felt like a missed opportunity however, as was the three or so trips through the dungeon, however well that was designed. The first abduction could have been handled better with magic, some backwater folks kidnapping a demigod felt ... lacking. Depending on your mod setup (aroused, aroused rape, and an option to make clothing count as sexy) this could become a pretty uncomfortable place for a slave. Good writing rounds of the mod. 8.5/10

 

I also took a look at Moonpath to Elsweyr but that ended when I couldn't make it past the first encounter in the valley.