What is your Favourite Overhaul and why?

[Darkwisdom]

After messing around with 'Perkus Maximus' and getting infuriated with the bugs associated with it's skyproccer, I gave up with it.

 

Requiem has this problem too, the patch messes up my game pretty badly compared to older versions without said patch.

 

I've tried all of these mods and others, Skyre and SPERG. 

 

I settled on SPERG. Why? It's more fun and less complicated, without massive mod incompatibilities. I can use my hardcore mods with SPERG and they don't feel so overpowered. I can fiddle with SPERG in MCM and I can get it just right. Combat is fast and fluent, without me being too overpowered, but still feeling I have a decent challenge without dying every 5 seconds. 

 

What do you use? What combination of mods do you use to make your skyrim unique to you? Perhaps you don't use a perk overhaul at all and just create one using a big combination of mods? 

[Spyder Arachnid]

I don't really use any game altering overhauls. Though I do use graphic overhauls. To me, that is enough to give the game new life and a new feel to it.

 

I'm currently using Tamriel Reloaded (all parts of it including trees, mountains, and flora), with Skyrim Flora Overhaul and Expanded Towns and Cities. Those alone make the game look much better. Then I toss in Climates of Tamriel with the Weather Patch and Expanded Snow System and Supreme Storms. Alternative Snow with Better Dynamic Snow and No Snow Under the Roof. Inside the Nebula for my night sky, and Ethereal Clouds for my day time. Realistic Water Two with Watercolor for my water as I think it looks better than Water. Of course SMIM for those static objects, with Transparent and Refracting Icicles and Ultimate HD Fire Effects. Then Stunning Statues of Skyrim and Splash of Rain.

 

Toss in Wet and Cold, Relighting Skyrim with Enhanced Lighting for ENB (the one from the ENB site, not from Nexus), Lanterns of Skyrim, and the Dawn of Skyrim (complete city makeovers). Then I use Project ENB (currently) for my ENB. Cinematic preset.

 

 

I use a few random HD texture mods as well for the little things, but that is pretty much it. As well the aMidianBorn stuff for armors and weapons. Tons of texture overhauls for all the armors and clothes in the game too to make them look better. Then SkyKids to fix those potato head children and Inhabitants of Skyrim for regular npcs (and some other npc replacers as well).

 

But that is what I use to "overhaul" my game. Nothing to change the gameplay or AI or any of that stuff. Mostly all cosmetic changes that give my game a whole new look.

[GrimReaper]

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/38710-preferred-overhaul-mod/

 

If it's a question about a favorite this and that, it probably has been asked (many times).

 

Anyway, I'm just going to use this thread here to rant about Perkus Maximus. I mean, T3ndo himself said that SkyRe was a bloated mess and attempted too many things at once and it became a mess as a result, thus the motivation for him to start a new project, this time it should be a perk overhaul and only that. The result is more or less SkyRe 2, the same bloated shit as it's predecessor. I have to say the description of the mod sounds very interesting, but I am not going to run a patcher that takes an hour or longer (lol). If it's just a perk overhaul mod, it doesn't need patching. It's the same shit again, with modifying armor and weapon values the most basic way instead of what SPERG or Ultimate Combat does - they do not need a patcher to make every non vanilla weapon or armor work with them. I don't know the details but other mods do the same what PerMa does in a much less invasive and more dynamic/compatible way.

 

And then there's adding weight to gold. Wow, that's really immersive! Will change the gameplay for the better! Except not, you shit. Adding a weight for gold doesn't add anything, it just makes the gameplay even more about inventory management for no reason at all. I mean, if you had some kind of bank in Skyrim where you could store all your gold and use that stored gold to buy things from vendors, okay - it would still be an arbitrary way to add more immersion to the game because all you do is dumping your gold there so it doesn't slow you down. But storing gold somewhere just so you have to return to the storage every time you want to buy something? Or after you sold something? I find it already annoying that you need to visit vendor after vendor just to buy or sell the things you want, especially when you are trying to grind crafting levels. But adding even more steps to that? Just because 'muh immersion money weighs something in real life too!'

 

Why not limit the character to carry two or three weapons, 10 potions and the armor you are currently wearing? I mean it's totally not immersive that you can carry 400 pounds of 2-handed axes around, right? Fuck off.

[FauxFurry]

The only gameplay overhaul that I've had any interest in using for any amount of time was Coda's Monster Hunter overhaul but even then,since it altered the dragon spawn and loot tables,I removed it after the Female Dragoness mod was released,deciding that if I want to play Monster Hunter,I'd just play it on the WiiU and 3DS. It would just make for yet another thing to keep in mind when re-arranging the load order after using LOOT or BOSS.I do have the systems for a reason. I can still use the weapons with other mods,anyway.

 

As for blending mods together,a combination of hand-loading and use of the NMM is the best way to get around that pesky 253 .esp limit though I tend to save hand-replacing for replacers which I wouldn't really want to play without anyway such as default armor replacers(too bad that hand-placing doesn't really work right for armor crowns) and many face overhaul mods or ones which don't have installer options. I also mix multiple types of replacers with .esps in some cases for effects that can't be achieved by any one mod such as mixing Gary's Real Mares with the Horse Penis mod or More Nasty Critters with a few hand-placed meshes from Eternal Black's Immersive Genders, Female Dragonesses(the only way to get any of the creatures in game to have all of the 'equipment' needed for any form of creature animation like the monsters in a certain mod for Oblivion had) and Better Shaped Female Creatures.

 

To create some much needed variety amongst the young folks of Skyrim (the quest "The Heart of Dibella makes that need more apparent than any other part of the game),I mix and match with Reworked Children of the Sky(the version of the installer which has vanilla children's clothing included and a Khajiiten version of Hroar),a Babette replacer(like this one) and the Sybil of Dibella follower and Baby Mommas .

 

For the adult playable races' bodies,I use DibellaSeven bodies for females(for the time being,anyway. I might switch back to MCBM or Sevenbase Oppai since DibellaSeven is so busty that mods like Milk Mod Economy which increases bust size slightly can cause the Dragonborn to become more mammary than dragon-slayer very quickly)with TigerSans' Female Muscle Mod Diesel normal maps and Better Khajiit-Less Furry while I use Slim Male Bodies for SOS with the normal maps from the Complete Male Overhaul for the males(obviously) and Grimoas' Plantigrade Feet for Beast Races and Better Claws and Gauntlets for all.

To top that all off, I use Schlongs of Skyrim with nearly every add-on for both male and female characters (though I only schlongify the female Khajiit,Argonians,Orcs and Wood Elves or female Nord Dragon-Born for the Schlong Shouts).

 

For hair and faces,I use a blend of All-In-One Facepack for UNP,Lion et Lioness Khajiit(now part of the Cat-Like Khajiit mod), Ethereal Elven Overhaul, Orc Enhancer, Pretty Face for Males, Enhanced Character Edit with Character Making Extender,Eyes of Beauty, ApachiiSky Hair, KS Hairdos, KS Hairdos for Beast Races,Oblivion Hairpack,MacKom's Real Skin for Men, Argonian Females Refined,Argonian Improvements-Horns and RadioReggae's Hair workshop for Khajiit.

 

For the armor,it is a healthy mix of armor replacers for UNPK,UNPBO,Sevenbase, 7BO and MCBM with a Little Sexy Apparel Replacer for females while it I just use every available Schlongs of Skyrim armor replacer for male characters.

 

That should be enough to get an idea of what kind of hybrid that I am running.

 

Now that I look at even a portion of the mods that I use laid out like that,I realize that it would make for one highly odd overhaul if it were bundled into a single package.

[FauxFurry]

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/38710-preferred-overhaul-mod/

 

If it's a question about a favorite this and that, it probably has been asked (many times).

 

Anyway, I'm just going to use this thread here to rant about Perkus Maximus. I mean, T3ndo himself said that SkyRe was a bloated mess and attempted too many things at once and it became a mess as a result, thus the motivation for him to start a new project, this time it should be a perk overhaul and only that. The result is more or less SkyRe 2, the same bloated shit as it's predecessor. I have to say the description of the mod sounds very interesting, but I am not going to run a patcher that takes an hour or longer (lol). If it's just a perk overhaul mod, it doesn't need patching. It's the same shit again, with modifying armor and weapon values the most basic way instead of what SPERG or Ultimate Combat does - they do not need a patcher to make every non vanilla weapon or armor work with them. I don't know the details but other mods do the same what PerMa does in a much less invasive and more dynamic/compatible way.

 

And then there's adding weight to gold. Wow, that's really immersive! Will change the gameplay for the better! Except not, you shit. Adding a weight for gold doesn't add anything, it just makes the gameplay even more about inventory management for no reason at all. I mean, if you had some kind of bank in Skyrim where you could store all your gold and use that stored gold to buy things from vendors, okay - it would still be an arbitrary way to add more immersion to the game because all you do is dumping your gold there so it doesn't slow you down. But storing gold somewhere just so you have to return to the storage every time you want to buy something? Or after you sold something? I find it already annoying that you need to visit vendor after vendor just to buy or sell the things you want, especially when you are trying to grind crafting levels. But adding even more steps to that? Just because 'muh immersion money weighs something in real life too!'

 

Why not limit the character to carry two or three weapons, 10 potions and the armor you are currently wearing? I mean it's totally not immersive that you can carry 400 pounds of 2-handed axes around, right? Fuck off.

I suppose that one could use the Daedric Butler or a follower to carry around all of one's money, and while that would be funny in itself to have so much gold that you need to hire someone else just to lug it around, it seems like a waste of follower carrying capacity just to haul around monetary units rather than loot that can be sold to earn more money.

[White Divinity]

It's Requiem hands down , i tried SkyRe and lots of the changes it made are horrible .

 

On the other hand , Requiem made changes that you feel like that most of them should've been in vanilla .

 

For example , In requiem , the skill tree feels simple and easy , in magic perks , each time you unlock one of them , you get to choose 2 new spells to learn based on the tree ..

 

The biggest thing that pulled me into Requiem was a certain feature , that it disables the ability to change the difficulty from the options menu , means that when you get to experience requiem in skyrim , you get to experience it comfortably , without worrying about the need to make the game more difficult or more easier , this feature is introduced to strengthen the immersion , making you try harder and harder in order to overcome the obstacles without getting away with it saying " oh , i think i will turn down the difficulty a lil bit , just to get past this area " , this kind of things ruin it for me , for which i liked games like Dark souls , because they had this feature in it , it punishes people who just charge in hard situation spamming attacks without making a strategy .

 

Furthermore , they added tons of new missing gear from the game , custom hand-placed loot , and alot more , it makes skyrim whole more greater experience , what more can i ask for ?

[Ashra XIII]

I outlined how I overhaul my game in the thread linked by @GrimReaper, which is to say that I don't truly use any one overhaul, but combine different mods to overhaul my game into something I enjoy playing.

 

That said, I have downloaded and installed Perkus Maximus, and though I haven't yet gotten very far into the game I started with it, so far I think it's pretty cool. Like GrimReaper, I thought PM was supposed to be a lighter version of SkyRe that only changed perks and related things, but it instead is an even more bloated monster than SkyRe ever was, though it does at least back away from things like trying to de-level the world. It's still a major overhaul, which is exactly what I thought it wasn't supposed to be.

 

It is, however, good fun so far and I haven't run into any major bugs to speak of (not to say there aren't any). The main thing that bothers me is that it seems to add every item of every mod you have installed to the leveled lists, including things that shouldn't be. For instance, if you have the quest mod Angrim's Apprentice, there are two spell books you can seek out to gain a greater understanding of what Angrim is trying to teach you. With PM installed, those books show up in spell vendor inventories!

 

The ReProccer thing is a bit crazy with how long it takes, but I'd say for anyone with a decent computer, the time frame is more in the neighborhood of 15-30 minutes, not nearly an hour. Still, like I said, it's a bit over the top. I will probably keep at it over the weekend, as I'm hoping to keep myself occupied until DA: Inquisition arrives.

[yatol]

The biggest thing that pulled me into Requiem was a certain feature , that it disables the ability to change the difficulty from the options menu , means that when you get to experience requiem in skyrim , you get to experience it comfortably , without worrying about the need to make the game more difficult or more easier , this feature is introduced to strengthen the immersion , making you try harder and harder in order to overcome the obstacles without getting away with it saying " oh , i think i will turn down the difficulty a lil bit , just to get past this area " , this kind of things ruin it for me , for which i liked games like Dark souls , because they had this feature in it , it punishes people who just charge in hard situation spamming attacks without making a strategy .

 

 

 

you can turn down the difficulty in the mcm menu...

 

and there's no need for a strategy in requiem, once you have the dragonbane armor you take no damage

and once you have a daedric weapon, you crush everything

combat isn't hard, it's just long, very long, far too long (because you run out of stamina as there are dozen of falmers in blackreach, dozen of bandits in camp, dozen of rabbits...)

 

but all overhauls have problems, that's why there is tesedit

[White Divinity]

 

you can turn down the difficulty in the mcm menu...

 

and there's no need for a strategy in requiem, once you have the dragonbane armor you take no damage

and once you have a daedric weapon, you crush everything

combat isn't hard, it's just long, very long, far too long (because you run out of stamina as there are dozen of falmers in blackreach, dozen of bandits in camp, dozen of rabbits...)

 

but all overhauls have problems, that's why there is tesedit

 

 

True you can , but the default difficulty is the maximum one ( 100% ) , which is requiem was built for , while in an overhaul like SkyRe , it's best played in normal difficulty .

 

But ofcourse , you will eventually become overpowered at high lvl , whether you play on an overhaul or not , but requiem creates a better experience from the beginning .

[Sunja44]

I decided to not use any complete game overhaul mods like Requiem, SkyRe or other mods that change whole game mechanics like perks, AIs etc.

 

Simple reason, compatibility issues with tons of mods that are hard to oversee, dependency on tons of compatibility patches and it takes a lot of time in general to get and keep everything stable. The chance of several conflicts is much larger with a big overhaul mod as just using a few small mods you install one by one.

 

I have no fear of script mods and I use a ton of them (Save Game Script Cleaner is the wondertool for happily installing, testing and trashing them again when done or unstable), but my absolute priority are mods that just beautify my game, aka change meshes and textures and to a certain degree animations. Mods that heavily change combat and gameplay mechanisms just aren't my thing, because I think it's not worth the stress.   

 

The only ones I use, that maybe change a very small part of game behaviour are a follower mod, Enhanced Blood Textures, Deadly Spell Impacts, a kill move mod (without any change to perks, just to death moves), a Weather or another lighting mod here and there etc.. The utter exception is SkyTweak for me, because I am pretty sure that with this one - well made and rock stable - mod I can achieve the most changes to game mechanisms I want and I have the total control over what actually was changed, how it differs from vanilla and I am able to revert everything I adjusted.

 

For me the most important in Skyrim is how something looks.

[Kaz Aanh]

Base Seven is my favourite.

[-Wulfy-]

I am way to afraid to use a full overhaul. I mess up my game plenty of times with countless other mod and an overhaul would probably end up in reïnstalling Skyrim, ha. Many smaller mods for me it is.

[Slorm]

The only thing I use that changes game mechanics is something I knocked up in CK which changes the damage output to 1 for all the difficulty levels (else if takes a long time to kill something on Master). I just up the difficulty every 10 levels and if it gets too easy alter on just increase the damage received.

 

Not elegant but it works for me and there's no problems changing it around

[Nasseliten]

I think Requiem is best. It's always worked flawlessly for me even when running 150+ mods.

 

It just feels so complete and perfect to use as a base when your modding your game.

But you need a decent knowledge of load order and making bashed patch etc or it can be problematic when you add many mods. (cleaning you master files important)

 

 

However I just did a complete reinstall of requiem 1.8 so I didn't fully test it yet, but so far no problems.

 

@Darkwisdom, How did the patcher mess up your game?

 

Many mods need patches to work with requiem and since 1.8 alot of them need to be remade but there are already several new ones on nexus.

[Dubhorizon]

All I can add to this is that when I see a mod that needs a lot patches to be compatible with other mods, I just don't install it. Even though Skyrim's perks are not good at all in vanilla, I'd rather keep that than spend hours and hours on tracking down every incompatible mod on my list and then hoping someone will make a patch for it.

 

My favorite overhauls by order of favor: Dragon combat overhaul, Enemy AI overhaul - no scripts version, Follower commentary overhaul. I chose these because they add a lot of immersion and are lightweight.

[Killing Joke]

I already discussed this in another thread, but I don't use overhauls anymore, I gave up on trying to turn Skyrim into a good experience gameplay wise to concentrate on roleplay instead. On some playthrough I may add "little" things here and there like ultimate dragons but nothing too invasive.

[Mord Sif]

I also go with SPERG. It adds a lot of nice improvements and you can just plug in and play without needing loads of patches. I'm with Dubhorizon on that one. Too many compatibility patches required and I look elsewhere.

 

I try and keep the core of my installation as lean and simple as possible, and save the complicated, heavy-duty stuff for what really matters: the raunch.

[XJ347]

Well, I have tried Requiem in the past and enjoyed it's difficulty. Saying that, I did have issues because of the compatibility with it... Eventually something in my save broke after a good long play through.

 

Haven't played Skyrim for its gameplay in years... I am going to try the new Perkus Maximus after I finished Kingdoms of Amulur, (worth the 5 bucks). I don't mind it's patching system, since the lack of one fucked up my Requiem game. Once I set it up into its own profile and lock it, in MO things shouldn't be a problem.

 

Was thinking of trying a non magic user, sneak cutthroat Redguard. Skinny teen that has lived an abused rough life that has recently killed her pimp/owner and is learning to stand on her own two feet. Making sure to have the bandits with sex slaves so she can save them! I see potential for my character. Was originally going to make a story out of it, like I did with Lily and Iona but I learned my lesson.    Just going to do a standard play through.

[Nasseliten]

Yes requiem needs patches to work with many mods but I have to add, I've played requiem for literally hundreds of hours and it never broke my game.

 

One of the best things about it is that its just 1 file (2 now with the new version) and it adds so much into the game. Instead of adding hundreds of other mods to get the same effect and loose control over your load order you only need requiem for the base and work from there.

 

Also like someone else said in here, there is no difficulty settings in requiem. Everything is balanced. without needing to adjust sliders. In other mods you may need to set it to very high difficulty for a challenge but I think this makes the game really unrealistic because you get regular citizens with loads of hit points / stamina. Even a skeever will have an unrealistic amount of hp. And magic casters will have a magica pool on several thousand. Don't be afraid to try requiem, it's totally worth it if you ask me.

 

I don't fully understand why people say the combat is long, makes me wonder if we play the same requiem? Because combat is usually over in a few hits. I do however combine it with deadly dragons set to insane difficulty and revenge of the enemies, + move max resistance slider in the mcm menu from 90% to 80%.

[Kuロi]

I have a small question to the SPERG users here : Does it affect difficulty and if so, how much?

 

One of the main reasons I've stuck to SkyRe all this time is that it makes the difficulty just right. It ain't too hard, but if I'm not careful I may very well screw up and die. However, it is true that it needs a painful amount of compatibility patches, work-arounds and overall research on every mod you use to do it's job, which makes me wonder about trying out SPERG.

 

Since it's only a perk overhaul, I'm guessing it's not affecting the difficulty though, which brings another possible question : what other gameplay mods are you guys using in your SPERG setup?

[Karin]

SPERG make game easy, perk are tooo OP here.

 

ASIS,WTF,HLE,RoE,SIC,OBIS,Combat evolved,TaB,DA,DC.

 

Even with this on legendary. Its no chalange latter.

[Killing Joke]

No one talked about Grimy's mods, skytweak and skyai, they're solid, highly customizable, are aware of other mods installed while still remaining light so you can either use them alone or in addition to other mods.

[Darkwisdom]

No one talked about Grimy's mods, skytweak and skyai, they're solid, highly customizable, are aware of other mods installed while still remaining light so you can either use them alone or in addition to other mods.

 

I've had a look at that and it seems pretty extensive on what you can customise. MY problem is that it seems too extensive; you'd have to be pretty fussy to get every little thing right. 

[Darkwisdom]

I have a small question to the SPERG users here : Does it affect difficulty and if so, how much?

 

One of the main reasons I've stuck to SkyRe all this time is that it makes the difficulty just right. It ain't too hard, but if I'm not careful I may very well screw up and die. However, it is true that it needs a painful amount of compatibility patches, work-arounds and overall research on every mod you use to do it's job, which makes me wonder about trying out SPERG.

 

Since it's only a perk overhaul, I'm guessing it's not affecting the difficulty though, which brings another possible question : what other gameplay mods are you guys using in your SPERG setup?

 

I think SPERG seems pretty lightweight compared to skyre or Perkus Maximus. Things like difficulty or AI mods make it very easy to customise your load order to suit your playstyle, whereas Skyre needed so many compatibility mods for almost everything, plus theres the reproccer to make modded weapons compatible. It's better in a way, and it does make SPERG a little bit overpowered in the fact it seems a little easier. 

 

 

SPERG make game easy, perk are tooo OP here.

 

ASIS,WTF,HLE,RoE,SIC,OBIS,Combat evolved,TaB,DA,DC.

 

Even with this on legendary. Its no chalange latter.

 

 

I don't entirely know what all of the abbreviations mean XD 

[Kuロi]

 

I have a small question to the SPERG users here : Does it affect difficulty and if so, how much?

 

One of the main reasons I've stuck to SkyRe all this time is that it makes the difficulty just right. It ain't too hard, but if I'm not careful I may very well screw up and die. However, it is true that it needs a painful amount of compatibility patches, work-arounds and overall research on every mod you use to do it's job, which makes me wonder about trying out SPERG.

 

Since it's only a perk overhaul, I'm guessing it's not affecting the difficulty though, which brings another possible question : what other gameplay mods are you guys using in your SPERG setup?

 

I think SPERG seems pretty lightweight compared to skyre or Perkus Maximus. Things like difficulty or AI mods make it very easy to customise your load order to suit your playstyle, whereas Skyre needed so many compatibility mods for almost everything, plus theres the reproccer to make modded weapons compatible. It's better in a way, and it does make SPERG a little bit overpowered in the fact it seems a little easier. 

 

 

 

The ReProccer is fine. I'm more concerned about the plethora of compatiblity patches that comes with it. I'm not sure if even half of them are needed either .