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I'm bored of Skyrim, show me something new.


rawr22

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I'm looking for something new to make my next play through of Skyrim interesting again, something other than the really popular and obvious mods (Frostfall, SkyRe, Realistic Needs, Sexlab, etc.).

 

What mods/play styles can you recommend to make the game interesting again that I may not have heard of?

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Boredom won't be solved with few other mods and as already pointed out here asking others probably won't solve it eather.

There many mods that make the interesting why not start finding out you have something to do instead others point you the way thats boring :P

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I disagree with the above posts. A few simple content mods can change the game dramatically.

Legendary Cities - TES Arena is an awesome mod that adds a lot of highly detailed and well made cities to Skyrim that were present in TES - Arena, with functional shops, inns, etc. 

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/47989/?

 

Touring Carriages at Skyirm is a very neat mod that takes the black-screen skip out of carriage rides and turns them into actual carriage rides. It uses dialogue lines present in vanilla Skyrim that were intended for traveling carriages, but never made it into the rushed release of Skyrim.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38529/?

 

Immersive First Person View - If you aren't already using this, I suggest you start. After a good five-ten minutes of tweaking, it greatly improves the feel of the game in my opinion.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49036/?

 

Combine Immersive First Person View with Animations for maximum effect.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51554/?

 

 

InsanitySorrow's weapons are good to use, look great, and are well balanced.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/258945/?tb=mods&pUp=1

 

Realistic Lighting Overhaul is the only mod I have ever seen that handles the overly bright dungeons in Skyrim the right way - rather than giving the player sunglasses, the mod takes down the lighting manually, and it looks very good. Bring a torch to your next plunder.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30450/?

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I disagree with the above posts. A few simple content mods can change the game dramatically.

 

Legendary Cities - TES Arena is an awesome mod that adds a lot of highly detailed and well made cities to Skyrim that were present in TES - Arena, with functional shops, inns, etc. 

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/47989/?

 

Touring Carriages at Skyirm is a very neat mod that takes the black-screen skip out of carriage rides and turns them into actual carriage rides. It uses dialogue lines present in vanilla Skyrim that were intended for traveling carriages, but never made it into the rushed release of Skyrim.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38529/?

 

Immersive First Person View - If you aren't already using this, I suggest you start. After a good five-ten minutes of tweaking, it greatly improves the feel of the game in my opinion.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49036/?

 

Combine Immersive First Person View with Animations for maximum effect.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51554/?

 

 

InsanitySorrow's weapons are good to use, look great, and are well balanced.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/258945/?tb=mods&pUp=1

 

Realistic Lighting Overhaul is the only mod I have ever seen that handles the overly bright dungeons in Skyrim the right way - rather than giving the player sunglasses, the mod takes down the lighting manually, and it looks very good. Bring a torch to your next plunder.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30450/?

 

 

If all the variations that's available with having the SL framework installed isn't enough to entertain our lovely OP, I honestly don't think Touring Carriages of Skyrim will entertain him/her either. Though it's quite hilarious when a carriage is speeding 'round a bend in the road and bounces off a lantern post and goes skidding sideways the rest of the way.

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I'm looking for something new to make my next play through of Skyrim interesting again, something other than the really popular and obvious mods (Frostfall, SkyRe, Realistic Needs, Sexlab, etc.).

 

What mods/play styles can you recommend to make the game interesting again that I may not have heard of?

 

When it comes to staving boredom with Skyrim, I think it's less an issue of WHAT you're playing with and more HOW you're playing.

 

Have you tried roleplaying? If not, give that a try. The choice of mods will be dictated by the character.

 

What is the character's occupation? What's their history? Why are they in Skyrim? What are their goals and motivations?

-Did something happen in your character's past to give them a hatred for the Empire or the Stormcloaks? Will that give them cause to join the Civil War? And how deep is their hatred? Will they kill civilian sympathizers?

-Do they become abhorred by all the killing and try to repent after the war by living an austere lifestyle while helping those they previously wronged? Or has all the killing destroyed their moral compass, and they sink ever deeper into the abyss?

 

-Or how about a story of revenge? Has your character's family been killed off by certain NPCs in Skyrim? Does your character seek vengeance? How will they accomplish it?

 

-Does your character pursue strength? Adventure? Coin? And why? Does your character pursue coin to fund a skooma addiction?

 

Based on that, you can use relevant mods to support the playthrough (e.g. Real Estate and Trading mods if you're character wants to get rich). I also recommend ModOrganizer to create different mod profiles for different characters.

 

 

Admittedly though, it is hard to come up with a good motivation for characters, and the character's motivations will need to evolve from their experiences in order to provide a long-lasting playthrough.

 

Personally I have trouble coming up with base motivations aside from revenge. Motivations like pursuing strength, dungeons, or gold are superficial and always have something deeper driving them. The character wants to be strong because _____. The character wants to be rich because _____. The character travels and explores dungeons because _____.

 

Revenge or hatred is one of those strong base desires/motivations that gives real drive to all other actions the character takes. I'd like to get some more variety, but I have trouble thinking of other base motivations. If anyone has ideas, please share them.

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If you're bored, try this: Skyrim Quest Checklist

 

 

This way you can say you have literally done everything in the game, and are still bored.

 

 

Otherwise, try overhauling your game completely. I find changing the graphics helps refresh the game. Like Enhanced Cities and Towns, NobleSkyrim HD-2K, Dawn of All Cities, Summer Skyrim, etc etc. These change the look of Skyrim drastically and make the game seem completely different. Top that off with a new ENB and you're all set.

 

If that doesn't do it for you, try some of those massive quest mods. Vilja in Skyrim, Helgen Reborn, Moonpath to Elsweyr, Falskaar, etc. There is tons of mods out there that add plenty of new areas and quests for you to explore.

 

 

But like the first thing I said, try that checklist first. Print it out and then get 100% completion in the entire game. You'd be surprised how much you missed after looking at that list. Then if that's not enough, start downloading quest mods or overhaul your game. Even better, do the whole 100% completion in vanilla Skyrim, no mods or anything. Then keep a backup of that save and then go mod crazy. This way you'll always have a 100% complete vanilla save to revert back to if you're not happy with certain mods.

 

 

And if all that doesn't work for you, play a different game. Take a break from Skyrim and go do something else. I'm currently playing through all the Mass Effect games right now while I take a break from Skyrim. There is nothing wrong with tossing a game aside for awhile.

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As anashi said, try roleplaying.

When you roleplay, your characters take on something more than "the playstyle" and doing "boring" things actually becomes fun if you do it in character. As an example, I find survival in frostfall, with R&D, Hunterborn etc etc kinda tedious, ive done it a lot and its gotten a little old. It got a new shine when I roleplayed a character that had nothing, rejected from a feral tribe, no concept of money and scared to death of regular people, and basically scrounged her way up from a useless wimp into a hardcore survivalist. I spent 10 hours in game on the plains west of Whiterun just...surviving, and it was a load of fun. Before that I wandered around the woods of Falkreath trying not to die of the cold, and that was really tense because I didnt look at my map, so I had a rough idea of where I was, but no idea how to get somewhere with a fire.

Also, because I couldnt go to any towns, when I got sick, I had to go down the river with a 50% speed reduction looking for a fish so I could make a meal to cure the disease. As boring as that sounds, it was actually fun, because it was in character, fast travelling or using a console command would have totally killed that. 


If you like writing, even try make a log of events, from your characters or another persons perspective. That really helps you to understand who they are and gives you a lot of ideas about their personality and key elements like motivations, not to mention the life it brings to the story. 

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Thanks for the replies guys.  Lots of interesting suggestions, some mods I have tried and many I have not.

 

magic, I'll definitely be trying some of those out. Thanks.

 

tomz, I was aware of Requiem but thought it to be 'like SkyRe but not as popular'.  Looking at it now it does have a lot of similarities but many key differences too.  I'm really looking forward to starting a new game now.

Edit:  Well I was looking forward to it, but it turns out it's incompatible with pretty much every mod ever, and all the compatibility patches (of which there are millions) are currently out of date.

 

Mister-X, I have used Gems before but it was a long time ago and I had forgotten about it.  Thanks for the reminder, I'll check for updates.

 

CeeTeeDee, I have tried my hand at modding before, and while I enjoyed the modding itself I found that it completely ruined the immersion of the game afterwards.  When playing, instead of seeing characters reacting to my actions I found myself seeing AI packages changed by triggers.  While I appreciate the work modders do, it is not something I wish to do again myself right now.

 

nanashi and Ballard, I've tried role playing characters before, but I've never been very good at it.  My character backgrounds have been so basic and they tend to do out of character actions as soon as the gameplay mechanics make it more convenient.  I'll give this more of an effort this time round, thanks for the suggestion.

 

Spyder, I just got a new GTX 970 which is exactly why I am coming back to Skyrim now, so it will definitely look different to my previous games.  I'll try the checklist out too, but as I'm starting a new game it will probably be a while before I look at it, and it kind of conflicts with role play so I'm not sure how to integrate it's use.  I had actually planned out a mod that allowed the player to start a 'Fighters Guild' which acted as a quest hub.  It would detect which quests the player has not completed, and then the quest giver would simply walk into the fighters guild and ask the player to do the vanilla quest, a kind of in-game immersive quest hub/checklist.  I've scrapped the idea of starting this mod for now though.  Maybe one day.

 

Thanks for all the responses so far, this is a great community.

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nanashi and Ballard, I've tried role playing characters before, but I've never been very good at it.  My character backgrounds have been so basic and they tend to do out of character actions as soon as the gameplay mechanics make it more convenient.  I'll give this more of an effort this time round, thanks for the suggestion.

 

The more time you spend on it, the better. 

 

Its a little generic, but I found this guide really useful http://hubpages.com/hub/skyrim-interesting-character-builds

 

I hope you succeed! 

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I disagree with the above posts. A few simple content mods can change the game dramatically.

 

Legendary Cities - TES Arena is an awesome mod that adds a lot of highly detailed and well made cities to Skyrim that were present in TES - Arena, with functional shops, inns, etc. 

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/47989/?

 

Touring Carriages at Skyirm is a very neat mod that takes the black-screen skip out of carriage rides and turns them into actual carriage rides. It uses dialogue lines present in vanilla Skyrim that were intended for traveling carriages, but never made it into the rushed release of Skyrim.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38529/?

 

Immersive First Person View - If you aren't already using this, I suggest you start. After a good five-ten minutes of tweaking, it greatly improves the feel of the game in my opinion.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49036/?

 

Combine Immersive First Person View with Animations for maximum effect.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51554/?

 

 

InsanitySorrow's weapons are good to use, look great, and are well balanced.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/258945/?tb=mods&pUp=1

 

Realistic Lighting Overhaul is the only mod I have ever seen that handles the overly bright dungeons in Skyrim the right way - rather than giving the player sunglasses, the mod takes down the lighting manually, and it looks very good. Bring a torch to your next plunder.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30450/?

 

Skyrim's "overly bright dungeons"? You mean the dungeons that are so dark you have to turn off all the lights, close the curtains and turn the brightness on your monitor way up just to see 3 yards in front of your character? Skyrim's dungeons suffer from the same problem as Oblivion's, unless you bring a torch (which ruins sneaking) you cannot see ANYthing. Its less of a problem when you are playing as a knight in pull plate type armor, wielding a sword in one hand and a torch in the other, but if you want to play as the sneaky type with dagger or bow, its a real hassle because the dungeons are so overly DARK.

 

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Spyder mentioned Helgen Reborn. That is an extremely interesting mod. It's got a fantastic story and can keep you entertained for hours/days depending on your playstyle. I was so enthralled with the process of rebuilding the town; and then the tower you get for is fantastic. Only downside to it is you can't activate it on a playthrough until after you've triggered the second landslide (saving one of the two) But alt start makes that easy most of the time when you choose the camping in the woods option.

 

Now that you've given more information, it seems you haven't played in a long time.

 

Get Inigo to run around with you as a companion. He's an extremely original follower with his own thoughts and ideas and the recent update to him has taken him off the vanilla framework. He's made me giggle a few times with comments about lizards or draugr. And he's got an in-depth integrated quest, (I've only just started it because you had to find the triggers to make it start so I dunno what's going to happen). Now when running around exploring only he and the healling lil spriggan are all I need. 

 

If you liked owning houses at one time, Breezehome has got a fantastic one that plays out like a little story itself. You don't even need to have purchased breezehome already to have it installed. The voice acting is pretty awesome, very interesting and the notes left behind adds to the idea that someone actually built the place. There's also an interactive part that has left little replica shrines all over skyrim for you to collect and display. I'm still finding them in the strangest places. 

 

And if you've never used it, Alternate Start will give you plenty of those roleplaying opportunities. I try and start somewhere different every time. Just watch it when you end up in Blackreach to start off. It's a little hair-rasing lol... For that I use  Skills Config. It's an MCM menu that lets me tailor my skills to what I think my needs will be starting out that playthrough (if you toggle on the level up you'll indeed level up as you set everything). Of course it can be used for cheating and get all the way maxed out but that wouldn't be fun would it? 

 

Last one I'll contribute for a bit until I've had more time to think on it is Dragons Diversified Now that makes traveling the wilds of skyrim really interesting. Especially when you get ganged up on by three of the weaker ones and you're running for your life lol. Though if you don't want dragons before you've triggered the helgen scene then I don't recommend it. Oh and Immersive Creatures, I can't play without it. Oh and Harvest overhaul if for nothing more than to use the extra coin boost when you find purses (who only carries 2-13 coins in those massive purses anyway?!). It even comes with an animal harvest overhaul if you want to activate it. (I have the esp activated but deactivated in the mcm through the harvest overhaul menu).

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I can only reiterate, alternate start mods really do help. I'm not a huge fan of just more land or more quests for their own sake,  I like stuff that makes the game even more sandboxy and gives me more reasons just to be out and about, bumping into incidental events as I'm carving out a living. For me the saving grace has been mods like Hunterborn, Complete Crafting Overhaul, Trade Routes, overhauls to combat and AI mechanics to make encounters tougher and more involved, unlevelling of dungeons to give myself a sense of trepidation every time I delve somewhere, plus some good respawners to make that blind bend in the road a little more interesting. I don't do many major questlines anymore, and I'm rarely Dragonborn.

 

I still get bored from time to time, take a break and come back to it with some new schemes of how I want to play it, and away I go again. 

 

 

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I'm going to have to agree with nanashi50 on this one.

 

To help with the roleplaying, take some screenshots. That's what I do, I take a few screenshots, sort of like a way of logging my character's journal, through imagery. Visually logging the story so far and how I want to interpret it for the next time I continue playing. Then, everytime before playing, I just look through some of the images and it helps put me back into the mindset and mood - making it much more enjoyable to play, as everything just flows. 

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I suggest you start modding and playing Oblivion or Fallout again (assuming you already have played them). They're cheap to buy and there are quite a few mods out there, especially for Oblivion. These days Oblivion is practically a whole new game with lots of extra content.

 

Then play Skyrim again. :lol:

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