Essential mods for a first time play through

[Alxndr]

I've never played skyrim before and this will be my first play through, hell I've never even watched much gameplay so I'm completely new.

Are there are essential mods that don't change the game, but just enhance it, or make it better from a user experience point of view?

If you could link directly to the mod that would be great. Thanks :)

[Morgan Fun Gamer]

I would say that the game is fine with no mods for first time play and I don't think that you need any mods before playing first time I would say play the game first time then mod later so you know what the mods do and you can have some ideas as to what mods you would like to get.

[Death Approaches]

welcome to your newest drug; this one has no known side effects, except making time disappear.

I would side with Morgan, just jump in and see what's what; you have no idea what bugs you yet, what you think will need changing. the amount of mods is a sea of endless choices; and you know nothing. have you modded a bethesda game before, any of them? unlike "regular" games it's part of the game's design from the start, not just hacks. so literally anything and everything can (and probably is) done. you want dragons to be Star Wars Star Destroyers? go right ahead.

there's even a category of mods for what you describe, Vanilla+ - vanilla original Skyrim, but, you know, better. but you still have no idea what you're doing; the game itself is time-consuming, but mod use? it can greatly exceed your playtime. mods must be done a certain way, in a certain order, with certain overwrites done in a separate specific order, most use mod managers to help with this, and 3rd party utilities make life easier, but you don't know them yet either. things that build your alternate bodies and clothes so they fit, register animations so they play, sort your mod loading order so you can (hopefully) game without any weirdnesses or crashes.

know this - there are shortcuts. Wabbajack! and nexusmods Collections are two common ones, where with a paid nexus subscription, you can just click on a bundle of mods and it does all the work for you, very little learning required, and they will just work.

but as you don't know a sabrecat tooth from a chicken egg, maybe get familiar with the game before diving into the world of mods? your decision, of course. if you still want em, start here: https://next.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/collections?categoryName=Vanilla+Plus

[hawklaser]

The only one that commonly gets recommended for a first play is the unofficial patch. Its not super necessary though.

Everything else is up to individual tastes. Some do add in a handful of UI or Graphical update mods. But those can get a bit more involved to set up unless you have experience with modding other games.

[Alxndr]

Thanks for the comments, I think I'll just play without mods for now then.

[Yellowbeard]

Depends...do you want the No Man's Sky / Cyberpunk release experience...

...or the current No Man's Sky / Cyberpunk experience?

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/266

[tyrs]

SkyUI

USSEP, while you're at it

[Alxndr]

Originally posted by tyrs:

SkyUI

USSEP, while you're at it

I just installed those 2. The first one is a massive improvement over the default UI so thanks for the suggestions.

The second one is a ton of bug fixes and stuff, exactly what I wanted.

[Ilja]

Better Dialogue Controls by ecirbaf
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1429

Better MessageBox Controls by ecirbaf
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1428/?

Modern Brawl Bug Fix by Enai Siaion
Some mods might have integrated this fix.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1473/?

And something to consider:
Cutting Room Floor by Arthmoor
BGS left out several unfinished quests. Arthmoor has parsed files and added content in to game. If you do not want to use this for the first run, then consider it for the second. File also allows you to complete some quests in ways that were planned, but not properly implemented.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/276/?

[Ilja]

I forgot one. Game updates messed few things for for SkyUI.

SkyUI SE - Difficulty Persistence Fix by Torwak
File includes fix for flashing.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/106418

[Bloodclot]

How stable are mods if you download Nexus and creation mods?

Seeing as this thread is about mods and first time players, I thought I'd ask.

I've downloaded from both, working fine so far but I am still in the testing phase and no crashes so far... This time around.

Made a mistake along the way the first time and got nothing but crashes when I opened my inventory.

Also will nexus and vortex arrange the mods in the correct order or can I rearrange them myself?

[Ilja]

Vortex sorts out resource priorities (or Mod priorities, as Vortex users tend to call them.) It does not allow sorting plugins out of the box.

Vortex uses LOOT API. If you want, you can use the LOOT itself through Vortex and set exceptions to sorting rules with it. It is actually quite easy: just open the metadata section for plugin in LOOT and you can edit it's sorting rules.

Creations can exist with mods from external source. Just keep in mind that those are not handled directly through he mod manager. Vortex should catch them from Data folder anyway, but there is always a slight chance of unnoticed conflicts with unmanaged files.

[Bloodclot]

Originally posted by Ilja:

Vortex sorts out resource priorities (or Mod priorities, as Vortex users tend to call them.) It does not allow sorting plugins out of the box.

Vortex uses LOOT API. If you want, you can use the LOOT itself through Vortex and set exceptions to sorting rules with it. It is actually quite easy: just open the metadata section for plugin in LOOT and you can edit it's sorting rules.

Creations can exist with mods from external source. Just keep in mind that those are not handled directly through he mod manager. Vortex should catch them from Data folder anyway, but there is always a slight chance of unnoticed conflicts with unmanaged files.

Appreciate that dude, cheers

[Alxndr]

Originally posted by Ilja:

I forgot one. Game updates messed few things for for SkyUI.

SkyUI SE - Difficulty Persistence Fix by Torwak
File includes fix for flashing.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/106418

What is the "difficulty persistent" bug in the first place? And what is flashing?

[Death Approaches]

this is why we say, just play the game, even the unofficial patch isn't as necessary as Yellow makes it sound, it used to be more important than now, now it's mostly for hundreds of little things, oh this armor has the wrong stat, or this weapons stats/powers don't match it's description or doesn't trigger correctly, annoyances moreso than game-stopping, quest-breaking bugs...

see, you don't know what SkyUI even is, or that there's an issue since 1130 version were it shows your difficulty as the lowest setting (but it's not, it's just a display thing) but it really bugs some people, and the fix ilja linked was for 1130 which still works in 1170, but there's a better one actually, for people that use skins with SkyUI, and paper maps for their journal pages, again, terms you don't even know what they mean yet. But you will, as the hours rack up. That's why I said initially, this thing will consume free time like teenagers consume free beer at a keg party. excessively!

mod use, if you don't do it gradually, leads to hours and hours of just reading, because you don't know what's what. seriously, dozens of hours. it's quite time consuming. even more to learn what to do, what weird thing happening is caused by what (invisible limbs, or invisible body just limbs, is that the same thing or different? Ahhh!)

learning over time is the best way, but diving in head-first and becoming obsessed works, too! winging it, not learning anything just grabbing things, then grabbing their prerequisites, can work... but it's rare. it usually leads to broken games and frustration and troubleshooting and begging for help and starting over, again.

all this is probably more confusing than it is helpful, anyway. you're just too new at it. everyone had a start time, and most of us posting were a decade ago, some more. we've had years at this. and a lot of us are technical, very PC proficient, which definitely helps.

your best bet if you want to mod is stay small, or use a Collection. but we don't know each other, for all we know this is the "puzzle game" (mod use in Skyrim) you've been looking for and will find it more fun than actually playing the game itself! :-)

[Yellowbeard]

'To Boeing or not to Boeing...that is the question...'

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1763

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/266