Should I jump to SE ?

[Immovable Object]

Hello sons of Tamriel,

I've been playing Skyrim since the day of its release in November 2011, and I never was informed of the game's evolution. Yesterday I thought of playing Skyrim again and after investigating I found out that there is new versions of the game and my version, which has a Steam Workshop support, isn't listed on the store anymore. I've found out that there's been a "Legendary Edition" that also isn't listed on Steam anymore and now I'm seeing this "Special Edition", as well as an "Anniversary Edition" which is itself a DLC of SE. I'm not used to these kind of renaming, offlisting and repricing practices so right now I'm a bit confused.

What's special about the Special Edition ? I'm asking this to the people who made the jump to this version, was there significant changes? Is it more stable? Does it support mods better ?

I've noticed that there's no Steam Workshop support for SE so I'll probably stick to the Nexus. Also I've seen people complaining about an update and paid mods. Is Bethesda trying to make addons paid again like they did in 2014 (or 2015-16 I don't remember), which was a total debacle if I remember correctly.
There's also this "Creation Club" whatever that is, it kinda replaces the Steam Workshop, right?

So yeah I'm quite concerned, I thought of trying the mod Skyrim Together Reborn with friends, which apparently only works on the Special Edition.
My main question is, Is it worth it to jump to SE at the current price, or at all ? I'm having some Skyrim nostalgia lately.

(Please forgive my terrible English, it may be inaccurate and the reason is that English isn't my native language, I'm using English so I can be understood by the majority.)

[steventirey]

Legendary Edition is the original Skyrim. Its what you have.

With Special Edition, they added in all the DLC to the base game, as well as some of the Creation Club stuff. There is no Steam Workshop because Bethesda added in their own (free) mod section accessed through the main menu, as well as their paid mod section (the Creation Club). The paid section recently got redone with more added to it.

The Anniversary Upgrade is kind of like a DLC for Skyrim. All it is is a bundle offer for the 70 Creation Club things that hadn't already been added to the base game for free. The thing labeled the Anniversary Edition is not a separate version of the game - it is just a bundle offer of Special Edition and the Anniversary Upgrade.

Special Edition is supposed to be more stable than the Legendary Edition, though I've never had a problem with any of them so I can't say if that is actually true or not.

[Tac Bravo]

I am doing both, LE and SE 1.57, with SKSE and SKY UI and access to ~130,000+ free mods between the two game versions. SSE 1.6.40 for me is dead, and very badly bugged. Like, it is not possible to deactivate AE on the Steam DLC Properties page, because when the game finally runs, there is a dialog box popover that says Install AE. , and the only option is OK. Anyway. not to drown in any more of that, It's a gaming paradise. The modding is more fun for some of us than playing the game.

[Immovable Object]

Originally posted by Tac Bravo:

I am doing both, LE and SE 1.57, with SKSE and SKY UI and access to ~130,000+ free mods between the two game versions. SSE 1.6.40 for me is dead, and very badly bugged. Like, it is not possible to deactivate AE on the Steam DLC Properties page, because when the game finally runs, there is a dialog box popover that says Install AE. , and the only option is OK. Anyway. not to drown in any more of that, It's a gaming paradise. The modding is more fun for some of us than playing the game.

Now that is reassuring, I used to have a pretty heavily modded version of Vanilla (without dlcs) with SKSE and SKY UI. Do you recommend a particular ver. for modding ? 1.57 like you have yourself ?

[WarBucks]

one big thing is SE/AE is 64bit. that allows the game to utilize more than 4GB of system and VRAM combined. From there there was additions of some vanilla graphics improvements was it HBAO to HBAO+?

They also changed stuff like how the game loads in assets. I believe landscape can load in independantly from actors? Forgive me it was so long ago i forget exactly but its like Ugrids got some improvement so now the recommendation is not to as just it from the default.

When it comes to the actual AE content. Well i like a lot of it. the goat is hilarious. There are mods that mess with the timing of when you see those, i havent tried them but i will eventually.

SE/AE also comes with survival mode as a setting too. I pretty much only play with that on now

[Immovable Object]

Originally posted by WarBucks:

one big thing is SE/AE is 64bit. that allows the game to utilize more than 4GB of system and VRAM combined. From there there was additions of some vanilla graphics improvements was it HBAO to HBAO+?

They also changed stuff like how the game loads in assets. I believe landscape can load in independantly from actors? Forgive me it was so long ago i forget exactly but its like Ugrids got some improvement so now the recommendation is not to as just it from the default.

When it comes to the actual AE content. Well i like a lot of it. the goat is hilarious. There are mods that mess with the timing of when you see those, i havent tried them but i will eventually.

SE/AE also comes with survival mode as a setting too. I pretty much only play with that on now

Thanks for clarifying, the move to 64bit is a BIG built-in improvement ! I wonder if the shadow quality is still linked to the draw distance, it was a mess to find a good balance in Vanilla.

[Tac Bravo]

Originally posted by Immovable Object:

Now that is reassuring, I used to have a pretty heavily modded version of Vanilla (without dlcs) with SKSE and SKY UI. Do you recommend a particular ver. for modding ? 1.57 like you have yourself ?

I am running both Skyrim SE v1.5.970 64 bit and Skyrim LE v1.9.32.0 32 bit, that is the basis of all my Skyrim modding and playing from now on, and getting the best of both worlds. As far as past saves, I have them backed up, but trashed them since the fun of that is all gone and it's time to build something a lot greater! I'm starting over brand new and clean with saves. So far it's working, but I have a feeling Big Brother will somehow shut off all my access soon, which I could care less about because there are a ton of other games to mod for right now.

[A. Silvermane]

Pros:

• Graphical Upgrade
  
• Thousands of Mods Not Available to LE
  
• Free Content (Survival Mode, Curios, Saint and Sudducers, Armoured Crab, Fishing)
  
• Enderal through Steam with its own achivements
  
• Official Bugfixes not present in LE

Cons

• Anniversary upgrade is pricey if you want all CC content but doesn't include Marketplace content
  
• Can't buy marketplace content for real money, you need points which are bought in batches usually far less or more then you need
  
• Marketplace content is costly for what you get
  
• Bethesda will likely update Skyrim again potentially breaking your mod list
  
• Special Edition is expensive. Definitely wait for a sale, do not buy at full price as it routinely goes on sale for 80% off
  
• Most of the bugs you found in LE are still found in SE

[theo]

I envy your ability to live under a rock for so long.
If you wish to try it do so but I'm considering reverting back to Legendary Edition

[g.lavoie007]

i wish bethesda to go bankrupt

[A. Silvermane]

Originally posted by g.lavoie007:

i wish bethesda to go bankrupt

Not before ESVI maybe after

[Tac Bravo]

Originally posted by theo:

I envy your ability to live under a rock for so long.
If you wish to try it do so but I'm considering reverting back to Legendary Edition

Welcome back! There are a lot of problems, but that is part of the joy of modding. I recommend you start with clean depot downloads, then lay that in as the core baseline. Next get MO2 and SKSE 1.7.3 working,

it's fairly simple but can be quite challenging when starting out. You will likely encounter problems at every step. That is how you learn though. Plus you can ask your fellow gamers for help if you get stuck at any point, or better yet anything you want to know has already been answered, or very close to it. LE has ~69,500 mods available.

https://www.nexusmods.com/.

There are some security issues, so it is more experimental in 2023 I would say, but incredibly playable. The original creators who did a fantastic genius job. I LOVE the original core team!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHRM_yv4bmU&t=649s

[theo]

I mean I'm playing Morrowind and Oblivion regularly, surely Oldrim mustn't be any worse
And I do miss og Frostfall and a few other mods that never were properly ported

[Sairek Ceareste]

Originally posted by steventirey:

Legendary Edition is the original Skyrim. Its what you have.

With Special Edition, they added in all the DLC to the base game, as well as some of the Creation Club stuff. There is no Steam Workshop because Bethesda added in their own (free) mod section accessed through the main menu, as well as their paid mod section (the Creation Club). The paid section recently got redone with more added to it.

The Anniversary Upgrade is kind of like a DLC for Skyrim. All it is is a bundle offer for the 70 Creation Club things that hadn't already been added to the base game for free. The thing labeled the Anniversary Edition is not a separate version of the game - it is just a bundle offer of Special Edition and the Anniversary Upgrade.

Special Edition is supposed to be more stable than the Legendary Edition, though I've never had a problem with any of them so I can't say if that is actually true or not.

If you have to buy the Anniversary Edition, then you're not getting the 70 creation club things for free. This is what we call a 'transaction', heh.

[Mechanos]

Originally posted by Immovable Object:

Hello sons of Tamriel,

I've been playing Skyrim since the day of its release in November 2011, and I never was informed of the game's evolution. Yesterday I thought of playing Skyrim again and after investigating I found out that there is new versions of the game and my version, which has a Steam Workshop support, isn't listed on the store anymore. I've found out that there's been a "Legendary Edition" that also isn't listed on Steam anymore and now I'm seeing this "Special Edition", as well as an "Anniversary Edition" which is itself a DLC of SE. I'm not used to these kind of renaming, offlisting and repricing practices so right now I'm a bit confused.

What's special about the Special Edition ? I'm asking this to the people who made the jump to this version, was there significant changes? Is it more stable? Does it support mods better ?

I've noticed that there's no Steam Workshop support for SE so I'll probably stick to the Nexus. Also I've seen people complaining about an update and paid mods. Is Bethesda trying to make addons paid again like they did in 2014 (or 2015-16 I don't remember), which was a total debacle if I remember correctly.
There's also this "Creation Club" whatever that is, it kinda replaces the Steam Workshop, right?

So yeah I'm quite concerned, I thought of trying the mod Skyrim Together Reborn with friends, which apparently only works on the Special Edition.
My main question is, Is it worth it to jump to SE at the current price, or at all ? I'm having some Skyrim nostalgia lately.

(Please forgive my terrible English, it may be inaccurate and the reason is that English isn't my native language, I'm using English so I can be understood by the majority.)

Honestly, only buy SE if you need more than 4GB ram for mods. SE does come with some mods/shaders built in (if you want that without ever using mods), but LE still works just fine, and there are even people still modding for it (nexusmods). Worse, anytime Bethesda gets some new money making scheme, SE will be the one to be targeted (like the recent paid mods crap).

As many old players will tell you, anything SE can give you, LE mods can do better (other than the 4GB limit, so you can't go ultra HD or use 500 mods), with some exceptions.. yes there are some mods only on SE and some mods only on LE. But I've never heard of an SE mod being sooo good, to be worth rebuying the game, know what I mean? I think most people buy SE for FOMO - fear of missing out. But in reality, it's the same game, slightly pre-modded, with 64bit support, and a shoehorned alternative mod store trying to sell mods like DLC, while taking a cut themselves. Nah man, LE is where it's at.

[Tac Bravo]

Originally posted by theo:

I mean I'm playing Morrowind and Oblivion regularly, surely Oldrim mustn't be any worse

I would say since you already purchased SSE and still have the right to download the content, you are golden but badly wounded by MS. Best way to heal is downgrading to SE 1.57 if you can get past all the MS hurdles designed to lock people out of the earlier titles (so they can shake a lot more cash from people's pockets for all new stuff).

You could also make an LE purchase but you need a URL for the store page for that and I don't know if the page actually works to make a sale. The fact that MS took that page offline when it has so many tens of thousands of mods still active for it, is a total act of bad faith and shows their anti-gamer, anti-consumer attitudes. Whatever you choose, there are people around that will be glad to help if you get stuck, so hang in there!