Highly Regarded, But Overrated Mods

[Fear2288]

Just for fun and some inevitable debate/disagreement.

What are some mods you feel are a bit overrated or just plain bad despite the fact that they have high endorsement/download numbers on Nexus and/or get spoken highly of and why?

My first two contributions:

1. Helgen Reborn

The idea of this mod is nice - a questline that results in Helgen being rebuilt into a functioning fortress town again - but the experience isn’t all that enjoyable.

A storyline that just isn’t very exciting or engaging, an unnecessarily long section where you have entirely generic guards accompany you on six different dungeon clearing missions, a lack of new unique assets (weapons, armor, clothing, spells, items, etc), some poorly designed new locations, a few unimaginatively named areas (“Fight Cave”, “Personal Tower”), and the realization that another town between Riverwood and Falkreath just isn’t as helpful as it seems…

It was just a “meh” experience that was interesting to go through once but I have no desire or need to keep this one in my mod list.


2. Taunt Your Enemies and that other one where you can call to NPCs at a distance.

I like jayserpa, and I like nearly all of his mods for the minor immersion or gameplay additions they introduce. He’s one of those mod makers that when he releases something - it rockets to the Hot Files page and gets endorsed and downloaded into oblivion within hours.

But I just couldn’t see the point in these two.

TYE seems like it would be useful but it’s kind of not. The benefit it gives you is minimal, it uses your power/shout slot, and the reality is that you don’t even need another boost like it to dispatch most enemies. The time it takes you to switch to the taunt, activate it, and then switch back to your preferred power/shout could just be better used to strike your enemy.

The name of the second mod escapes me but it allows you to get an NPCs attention from afar by calling out to them.

I can’t think of one instance where this feature would be truly beneficial or have a practical purpose in this game other than to make an NPC walking away from you stop so you can catch up to them to speak, or coaxing an enemy to come running at you.

[StreamWhenGuy]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Which world overhauls do you use then? I just picked JK's and great cities because that seemed to be the standard.

I use vanilla.
From what I've seen only the team behind Enderal made it kinda right and to my liking — they just created different layers of districts separated by loading screens within city walls.

[Fear2288]

Originally posted by Starlight:

I'm also not usually keen on amateur written mods like the guy just mentioned about women tortured and murdered. That's just kind of cringe and sordid to me. It just seems distasteful and immature so I wouldn't enjoy that.

You say this under the assumption that it’s being used as nothing more than shock value or like it’s glorified.

You’re incredibly wrong.

Beyond Reach asks a lot of questions regarding morality, justice, and power. It explores the philosophy of good vs evil, right vs wrong, and selfishness vs altruism. It plays heavily into the reality that things aren’t always as they seem, that the forces of good can commit terrible atrocities, that having the best intentions can still lead to pain and suffering, that the good guys can still lose, and that us mortals can be responsible for some truly heinous acts motivated by fear, hatred, lust, greed, or even love.

It’s a very heavy, dark story and the fact that the author - razorkid - was deep in a near-suicidal depressive episode when he made the mod is evident throughout.

He doesn’t pull punches in some parts, but it’s not for the sake of being “edgy”, most of it has a point.

The scenario I referenced above plays into the story’s (and the lore’s) conflict between the Bretons and the Orcs.

The Bretons had recently marched on the latest inception of Orsinium - a territory carved out of High Rock to serve as a homeland for the Orcs where they could live in peace.

Despite some of the Breton Kingdoms initially allowing the Orcs to settle this land, they later change their minds and ally with one another to invade Orsinium and effectively carried out a genocide - those not killed were enslaved, and those who managed to escape now roam eastern High Rock waging a guerilla war.

The capture, torture, rape, and murder of these Breton women is a deliberate act of hate by these Orcs. Hatred brought about by recent events, but also the long running cycle of violence and racism that exists between the Bretons and Orcs.

The survivor’s dialogue and behavior upon rescue also ties into the emotional and psychological devastation brought about by being a victim of such an act, but also touches on the woman’s own deep-seeded racism as she refers to the child inside her as a monster and even later on seeks out a witch to terminate the pregnancy (and if you prevent it, her despair and hatred at the thought of birthing such a child leads her to commit suicide).

Putting tangible evidence of such a hateful act in the quest emphasizes not only this but reinforces the various narrative points and themes of the mod’s story mentioned above.

[Riverdusk]

Originally posted by BottleCap:

Ordinator, it has some cool and unique perks, like the one that gives you a lot of attack speed or the one that summons a wolf from the two handed tree and the entire steal tree is very cool too, but i feel like the balancing went out of the window and at a certain point you end getting lost in the perk trees

Totally agree with you about Ordinator, I find it bloated and a bit ridiculous. Same author did a much more simple one called Vokrii which I find much better.