Anyone else stuck in a behavior loop with Skyrim?

[Ruenis]

tl;dr in bold at the bottom.

Between SE/AE and LE, I have almost 7000 hours played - roughly 2 months of play every three years, totalling to a little over 8 months of play, and I'm ashamed but man enough to say that I've never progressed the main quest beyond after you complete the Diplomatic Immunity quest, like, ever. The mods are too enticing, and I'm only seeing more by the day.

Skyrim has made me feel like, if I, as a buyer, am not 100% free to do whatever I want with my games, I'm less interested in playing them. It's an unrealistic expectation of other game developers with their IPs and used game engines. I am thoroughly spoiled by the Creation Engine's potential. SKSE and other third party apps that compliment the game's editor, the Creation Kit, can totally turn the experience on its head, big time.

People are "cutting their teeth" on this game, as the saying goes.

It leaves me mesmerized, I being one of a health standpoint to have enough time to freely enjoy it all (It's mildly complicated). So many folks contributing so much new content that only spells thousands of ways to enjoy my favorite game, Skyrim... Trailing off here, but my tl;dr is, I never engage the game normally for playing around with mods too much.

Can anyone else here relate? Do you have an odd obsession concerning this game? It's interesting how it draws people in, almost like a grandfather telling his beloved stories...

[sdack]

Sounds like you have found your creative side. Some people never get to be creative in their work and life, and the moment they come across something like this it just comes out and they cannot stop.

[Corinze]

I just hit level 60 last night and Serana left on a journey to cure herself.

I was debating if I should join the Legion or go talk to whomever took the horn of Jurgen or just wait for Serana to come back.

Someone wants to have a drinking contest too, it is alot of work training the kids in magic though and getting drunk in front of the kids sounds like a poor idea.
I really need to find out where these cultists, that keep attacking us, are coming from too.

Then again it has been nice and we've spent a lot of time around the pool and making potions and I really would like to build a lake side house somewhere plus the Jarl of Falkreath has requested my presence.

You know Rome was not built in a day. A really cute girl in Riften once told me "one day, just not today" when I asked what her real name was, after killing all her friends. Maybe one day I'll start a new adventure but right now the pool water has been pretty nice.

[Docsprock]

I have around 10k hours and have only seen Sovengard 3 times. Only did the civil war questline twice. (Once for each side).

[Kyle]

It's an RPG, so there are plenty of similar pitfalls to help consume time. Being an altoholic will result in a lot of time spent replaying content, but in a different way each time. It has indeed been many hours of gameplay across multiple systems since I've seen the end of the main quest. Most of my warrior playthroughs do it but end up falling off somewhere different every time.

Mods are a great way to extend the game or fix it however you please. The Creation Kit is indeed a very powerful tool. Even without a lot of knowledge, you can make small edits as needed. I like to bring back more meaningful racials without going overboard. Orcs get their magic resistance back, Khajit get jump height increased (rip acrobatics), and Elves get faster magic leveling of whatever tree is desired. I just stick with 3x destruction since at a certain point, you will be drowning in illusion XP as a combat mage. Other than that, I aim for low mod usage. I love the immersion of Open Cities so I keep the load order light, don't even have script extender.

If I ever get really bored, you just make a wild type of character. Turn on Survival/Legendary, RP as a merchant/smith/alchemist and travel town to town wearing clothes. Hire a follower as a bodyguard. Do weird things, because the game allows it. They built in so many scripts and tools into the base game to make RP possible that have been sitting there gathering dust for most players.

The TL;DR is that Skyrim really does sit at a sweet spot of quality in a game. Yes even with the Unofficial Patch, there are still bugs. It's Bethesda. It inspires a lot of creativity from both mod makers and players alike, and has the tools to allow for incredible variation in the game.

I really hope ES6 turns out better than their more recent creations. It feels like things have been sliding since Skyrim.

[ĿIFE oƒ ƤIE]

Maybe its not about the final destination, but the journey getting there.

[Liquid Inc]

Skyrim just lets you do anything you want to... that's the beauty of it. Modding's just the icing on that particular cake.

There are other games that have more features, they might have better graphics, they had better story, better landscape design etc... but very few combine all of that and still let you go where you want to, do whatever you want to, be whoever you want to...

Many, like the Witcher, or Dragon Age, are railroaded; You follow story. Same even applies to Cyberpunk, BG3, Diablo and the list goes on and on. "You ARE this, you WILL do this, and you WILL do it this way."

It's that combination of features that makes Bethesda games unique, and even Starfield has that combo, even if it's not great in certain area's. In time, it will have a similar following to the others, and perhaps even a larger modding scene because of the sheer size of the "playable area".

Me? I haven't played much Skyrim lately. Still trying to figure out what's causing one of my settings loaders not to work, but the rest of my mod list is fully working and ready for whenever i want it.

[FauxFurry]

i wonder if people worry about this kind of thing when they keep going back to pick-up games of basketball or sessions of Monopoly or Dungeons & Dragons.

[Melkolf]

Addiction, in whatever form it takes, is never a good thing. Rehab and therapy are useful but the only person who can truly break your addiction is you.

However, if it's simply a case of enjoyment playing the game, then what's the problem?

And unlike continually shooting hoops for practice Skyrim is not a game of skill one has to practice in order to get better.

And trying out new mods, well, what's the problem with that? Unless trying out new mods is the addiction...

[BottleCap]

I should have 1.5k hours in legendary and atleast 1k in special, but steam doesn't count offline playtime, skyrim and it's quest/companion mods kept my spirits up in a really dark moment

[Sairek Ceareste]

I'm not in a Skyrim loop, but I am in a Bethesda loop of Skyrim/Morrowind/Fallout 4. Each of these modded, of course.

Unfortunately I couldn't really get into Oblivion as much as I wanted to. It feels a bit too jank for my tastes, I guess.

[Ruenis]

Originally posted by Melkolf:

Addiction, in whatever form it takes, is never a good thing. Rehab and therapy are useful but the only person who can truly break your addiction is you.

However, if it's simply a case of enjoyment playing the game, then what's the problem?

And unlike continually shooting hoops for practice Skyrim is not a game of skill one has to practice in order to get better.

And trying out new mods, well, what's the problem with that? Unless trying out new mods is the addiction...

It's not an addiction. I'm never so glued to the game that I don't find time for anything else. It's just I'm hoping to enjoy the base content some time without the necessitation of modding - A true "out of box experience," all except for a 3rd-party program that optimizes your default "Skyrim.ini" and "SkyrimPrefs.ini," called "BethINI Pie."

[Ruenis]

Originally posted by ĿIFE oƒ ƤIE:

Maybe its not about the final destination, but the journey getting there.

I don't think that philosophy applies much when I keep refusing to play unmodded. I'll start an unmodded game, and even have a lot of fun, but the mods draw me back in, and I'm hoping to enjoy an "eternal save" as it were without a single mod.

[Ruenis]

Originally posted by sdack:

Sounds like you have found your creative side. Some people never get to be creative in their work and life, and the moment they come across something like this it just comes out and they cannot stop.

That's not entirely the case, but I actually have tried my hand at actually creating mods, ever since Oldrim. :D

I had made a basic music replacer that used Sega Genesis music, mostly from games designed by the old developer named "Wolfteam." I used them in tandem with an older version of a unique Oldrim mod that let you "transform into an angel" (It's called "Nephilim." Find it here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63774 ). Felt nice to put some Sega stuff into the experience. That angel mod brought thoughts of Actraiser, though I never grew up with it originally (the original SNES first game).

[Ruenis]

Originally posted by Kyle:

It's an RPG, so there are plenty of similar pitfalls to help consume time. Being an altoholic will result in a lot of time spent replaying content, but in a different way each time. It has indeed been many hours of gameplay across multiple systems since I've seen the end of the main quest. Most of my warrior playthroughs do it but end up falling off somewhere different every time.

Mods are a great way to extend the game or fix it however you please. The Creation Kit is indeed a very powerful tool. Even without a lot of knowledge, you can make small edits as needed. I like to bring back more meaningful racials without going overboard. Orcs get their magic resistance back, Khajit get jump height increased (rip acrobatics), and Elves get faster magic leveling of whatever tree is desired. I just stick with 3x destruction since at a certain point, you will be drowning in illusion XP as a combat mage. Other than that, I aim for low mod usage. I love the immersion of Open Cities so I keep the load order light, don't even have script extender.

If I ever get really bored, you just make a wild type of character. Turn on Survival/Legendary, RP as a merchant/smith/alchemist and travel town to town wearing clothes. Hire a follower as a bodyguard. Do weird things, because the game allows it. They built in so many scripts and tools into the base game to make RP possible that have been sitting there gathering dust for most players.

The TL;DR is that Skyrim really does sit at a sweet spot of quality in a game. Yes even with the Unofficial Patch, there are still bugs. It's Bethesda. It inspires a lot of creativity from both mod makers and players alike, and has the tools to allow for incredible variation in the game.

I really hope ES6 turns out better than their more recent creations. It feels like things have been sliding since Skyrim.

I have the same hopes, and truly believe it will, but I've been caught feeling doubtful before. I still believe it will...

Believe me, I've casually come to realize all of this about the nature and makeup of the game, which is the nature and makeup of most Creation Engine games (I'm including Morrowind, Oblivion, & New Vegas as well), & it's a large part of just why I find it so hard to put mods down.

I've seen all sorts and manner of Skyrim modding that I am thoroughly sold on it. I can barely grasp the ins and outs of the default content, but because of the mods alone, I fancy myself one of Bethesda's biggest fans, solely out of that they even go the mile to allow let alone PROMOTE such freedom. It's incredible. Somewhere along the line, I realized I had it this good even with Morrowind, but it wasn't till Oblivion that I started realizing it in a much larger sense, though rather late. Morrowind was my first, Obivion my second, Skyrim my third, and I think Arena and Daggerfall respectively my 4th and 5th before ESO. I can barely muster up anything of value to input about this series, but I love it greatly for what the main three games starting from the year 2002 are capable of, though out of the three, Skyrim is my absolute favorite.

I'm aware of even small particular ventures capable of being taken with its version of the Creation Kit, some of which I've seen on Nexusmods both for Oldrim and for Special Edition/Anniversary Edition, and the desire to see more never dies in me. I could go on forever, because knowing the iteration of just about anything is possible keeps me interested, and I have seen things done that really leave someone who's been playing since February 9th of 2012 questioning just how much of a beast the game can truly become. Strides have been made that leave me wowed, so I swear up and down by this game, so much so that it sometimes becomes annoying to others for how I enact upon that. It's very much like a Skyrim NPCs addiction to skooma wanting more and more, ha ha, only I wouldn't venture to call it a drug for how I treat it in real life beyond typing online.

[Ruenis]

Originally posted by Liquid Inc:

Skyrim just lets you do anything you want to... that's the beauty of it. Modding's just the icing on that particular cake.

There are other games that have more features, they might have better graphics, they had better story, better landscape design etc... but very few combine all of that and still let you go where you want to, do whatever you want to, be whoever you want to...

Many, like the Witcher, or Dragon Age, are railroaded; You follow story. Same even applies to Cyberpunk, BG3, Diablo and the list goes on and on. "You ARE this, you WILL do this, and you WILL do it this way."

It's that combination of features that makes Bethesda games unique, and even Starfield has that combo, even if it's not great in certain area's. In time, it will have a similar following to the others, and perhaps even a larger modding scene because of the sheer size of the "playable area".

Me? I haven't played much Skyrim lately. Still trying to figure out what's causing one of my settings loaders not to work, but the rest of my mod list is fully working and ready for whenever i want it.

I realize these things, and it can even be mind-boggling sometimes, though I still love a great non-Bethesda game, of which I still buy. In the past 2 years, I accumulated 296 of them from Fanatical alone... 😮

But yeah, just the freedom before you even try to speak on specifics is mesmerizing alone. I've noticed that some folks tend to speak of Skyrim in a rather restrictive manner, and some of them might be console players, even though even they get the modding experience as well, though not to the extent that PC players do. You can make a TON of things happen on the PC side, many of which are still possible on console. If I had the talent, I would develop a "total conversion" that pays homage to much of retro gaming, just to make older gamers like me smile. There are small signs of that anything could happen even in the vanilla game. Skyrim is truly a marvel of this industry, and I think other developers either realize it, or are jealous of that notion sometimes. You notice it in the necessitation of the "Arrow in the Knee" joke spread wide, far, and thin.

I just realize I'm sitting on something that could go in any direction at a hairdrop - it's that insanely open-ended. This is why it's hard to make good on the idea of playing the game as it stands - with extra DLC in tow - and complete a full vanilla, standard run. I could be enjoying so much more that I can't bring myself NOT to think of just what.