was I better off without the patches?

[dr.proximo]

I finally decided to get the unofficial patches. first I just got the main patch, and the first time I ran the game, I got a few quest updates (1 that it wouldn't let me do was counted as "failed", which is fine coz it was a miscellaneous and that just means it got removed from my journal). I didn't notice anything else different, but that's fine. then I realized that I was also supposed to get patches for the DLC as well, and I did that. didn't notice anything at first, but when I visited my homestead with the armory, one of the mannequins was hovering with his knees bent (as if he started jumping up and froze in time), and about a third of the weapons on the weapons racks were missing. including Mehrune's Razor. then when I went to Lakeview Manor (where my family is), I discovered that my wife has disappeared. now, lore-wise this might make sense, I've recently started a few of the Thieve's Guild quests, and I'm married to Mjoll, so I suppose she could have heard about what I was up to and just took off, but I'm fairly certain that sort of thing doesn't happen in-game. I've checked Riften and every other home I own, she wasn't anywhere. no ransom demand, no explanatory dialogue from my steward or children. ALSO my daughters started bugging me about my "doggy". the only dog I interacted with was Barbas, and I finished that quest last week. he was turned to stone long before the kids "noticed" him. after the fourth time they mentioned it I finally picked the "yes he can stay with you when I'm done with him", and that seems to have fixed that. I'm at level 54, I wanted to see this playthrough to 80 before I started my next game (unarmed wandering mage), but now that my existing game appears to be "broken", I'm considering ditching this game, choosing a handful of "immersion" mods I've been interested in and starting my new game now. I figure there's much less chance of problems if I have the same mods during the entire playthrough as opposed to adding them after starting. but seriously, I feel kind of ripped off that these patches which were supposed to fix things ended up making things worse. even if some things were fixed, it wasn't worth it.

[Bearded Dream]

You shouldn't add mods during a playthrough. It can cause problems that wouldn't be there had the mod been installed from the very beginning.

[TL Gamer]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Anarchy is the only Freedom:

You shouldn't add mods during a playthrough. It can cause problems that wouldn't be there had the mod been installed from the very beginning.

Yes you were better off without patches

[dr.proximo]

I decided to disable all the mods and check things; wife still nowhere to be found, even more weapons missing, and all the mannequins are naked (they still have the amour in their "inventory", but not equipped, I didn't bother taking the time to re-equip all of them). of all the times I've been told that I should install all of the unofficial patches, I don't recall one person saying "oh, by the way, don't install them if you're in the middle of a game, wait until you start a new one", or anything like that. I'm going to continue this playthrough for a little more so I can get the achievement for obtaining all the daedric artifacts, but I'm not going to bother trying to get to level 80 on this (broken) game, I'm going to come up with a rich back story, install appropriate immesion mods (and turn the unofficial patches back on of course), and start fresh.

[Bearded Dream]

Początkowo opublikowane przez dr.proximo:

I decided to disable all the mods and check things; wife still nowhere to be found, even more weapons missing, and all the mannequins are naked (they still have the amour in their "inventory", but not equipped, I didn't bother taking the time to re-equip all of them). of all the times I've been told that I should install all of the unofficial patches, I don't recall one person saying "oh, by the way, don't install them if you're in the middle of a game, wait until you start a new one", or anything like that. I'm going to continue this playthrough for a little more so I can get the achievement for obtaining all the daedric artifacts, but I'm not going to bother trying to get to level 80 on this (broken) game, I'm going to come up with a rich back story, install appropriate immesion mods (and turn the unofficial patches back on of course), and start fresh.

It's true of all mods. You don't disable existing mods and you don't add new ones. Doing either is likely to mess up your game. That's something you would know had you read up on how to mod your game without messing it up.

[MassHysteria]

pretty much

[Uncle64]

About Barbaras try to find Meko. There are some bug that fixes some if you use him for some time. Send him home or let your children adopt him.

[Ilja]

When you publish walls of text like that, then reading it becomes really painful. I sort of had a TL;DR moment there. English is not my primary language, so it was hard to make sence. I will just write about what I thought you were asking.

Including Unofficial Patches is very much recommended. Usually you can also include new mods during the game, if you are certain that they do not conflict with already existing mods. Pulling mods out during the game is usually bad idea, because you can never really create a completely clean save.

This is also the reason why some mods and patches might be more trouble than worth, if installed during the game.

Patches do not fix scripts that has already gone wild and affected to your save. They can only affect to scripts that load after patches were installed. This is quite obvious, when you think it for a moment. All those conditions and stages has already been included with your save files. When game suddenly gets entirely different orders to handle them, it may get confused. This rarely happen during early stages of game, but old games have more variables included with them.

Unofficial Patches and similar modifications are best to include straight from the start, or when your game is clearly going in to sideways. While they usually do not create a mess for older saves, possibility for that to happen is still there. It seems that you were unlucky enough to be caught within the range of that possibility.

If your game is currently acting erratic, then you might wish to try out Hadoram's Save game script cleaner. This is what I use, after I have updated my existing mods and patches. I recommend that you watch the video first, so you know what is going on. Hopefully this will manage to fix your saves. I would keep patches in after cleaning your save, but it is entirely up to you.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52363/?

[gnewna]

It's usually okay to add mods to an existing game (otherwise how would you carry out the correct procedure with adding mods which is to add one or two at a time, test that they are stable, then add the next one or two?) but as Ref says, sometimes there can be an issue which hasn't flared up yet, which adding a mod (especially the patches as they affect so much of the game) will kind of 'bring to the surface'.

(Removing mods mid-game is a Very Bad Idea, though, unless (and sometimes even if) you know EXACTLY what you are doing, which most people don't, and it is officially Not Supported/Recommended by Bethesda.)