Go ahead and go to the Collections section and get one of the most downloaded mod collections. I added Gate to Sovngarde to my list but you can customize it however you wish!
I can’t give specifics because it will depend on the version you play and also it’s been a while and I don’t remember all mods by heart. So it’s just gonna be suggestions; in no particular order:
First of all you’ll need the fundamental bug fixes. There’s (still) lots of bugs in vanilla Skyrim.
You will need the new improved menus, most mods rely on them.
Personally I can’t play without improving the aspect of PC and NPCs, so improvements to bodies, faces and hair are a must for me. If you get down the rabbit hole there’s things like mustaches, beards, tattoos, eyes etc.
Armor and weapons is a close second for good looking stuff.
You will want a mod that improves polygons as well as something that enhances vegetation, skyboxes, water and weather.
There are mods that fill the cities and villages with a lot more… stuff. Things like decorative vegetation, benches etc. You will not be able to play without it once you’ve tried it.
The skill trees and the professions all need specific mods that apply balances and fixes. You can also go one step further and apply mods that actually make them interesting.
If you can find one for your version of Skyrim, I strongly recommend a mod that improves dragon AI and makes the fights actually challenging. It always seemed ridiculous to me how easy they are by default.
Better horses is a good idea, lots of convenience there.
Smithing improvements. Nuff said.
Personally I can’t stand the default fighting in all aspects of it. I must have didn’t roll and some extra brains for the enemies. Some mods the spruce up the dungeons aren’t bad either.
You can get lots of extra quests and NPCs with Interesting NPCs.
I typically avoid shaders and ENBs in favor of simpler mods that let you adjust the game colors (contrast, saturation etc.) They have very low impact on performance and give you that color jolt that’s 90% of why people use ENBs anyway.
On an even more personal note, I like to play like a classic RPG. I get mods that allow multiple companions and interesting NPCs and when I met somebody interesting I take them into my party. There are also mods that let you order them better, you can adjust their flags to set what armor and weapons they prefer, how they level up, and whether they have “plot armor” so they can die for reals. I usually end the game with a party of 4-6 people and it’s a blast. But you may want to adjust the difficulty accordingly as you go out you will start rolling everything.
Another very interesting approach I’ve tried a couple of times is mods that remove all identification clues (no town names, no directions, maximum map fog of war) and start you in some random point of the map. Add some difficulty mods so you have to be really careful who you meet, perhaps some survival mods, and it’s a real blast. You can also use rogue rules and restart when you die (and not save scum).
How do you fix the opening credits so I’m not a helicopter? Ever since my first playthrough on my old computer, I’ve never gotten past the opening scene. It’s so frustrating.
try using the console to set the speed to like 0.5 or even slower. When things speed up, the game physics goes nuts; slowing them down stabilizes them again.
If you really want a fresh experience and don’t wanna spend more time modding than actually playing, I cannot recommend more strongly Wabbajack. It’s a fully automated modlist installer with a huge gallery of available lists.
Some of the available modlists are foundational, giving you just the essentials (Engine tweaks, HD assets, community bug fixes, etc.), and some are total conversions, turning the game into a fully-realized modern third-person action game, with controls, animations, and graphics as good as any modern game.
It does everything for you, from installing Mod Organizer 2 to creating game launch shortcuts, and everything in between. All you have to do is log into Nexus (and whatever other mod sites your modlist of choice might use). It’s worth getting Nexus Premium at least temporarily to speed up the process.
Here is the Skyrim Special Edition modlist gallery.
It’s super dorky but I had a blast with SkyVoice - use your mic to say the shouts! It made the shouts way more fun and got me to use them more since you don’t have to go through the menu to equip a shout before using it.
There was a macro mod I paired it with that let me make voice macros - pick a word and key binding, then in game set the binding to whatever you wanted the voice line to do. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of that mod, just wanted to point out that SkyVoice can do more than just the built in shouts
7 Days To Die. It may have taken them 10 years, but the game is pretty solid now. This release has a huge number of quality of life changes, fixes and is extremely performant compared to many previous alphas. Great fun with friends.
Persona 3 Reload - I’m not sure whether I like it or not just yet tbh. I’m about 20 hours in (or 2 months of “in-game time”) and the plot is very slow to unravel.
I don’t like turn-based RPGs usually, so combat is a bit of a chore and the exploration of Tartarus is very samey. Social sim aspects have been fine, but I guess I expected a bit more interactivity? I’m not sure. Its been nice to learn more about side characters, albeit ones not present in the “core” team.
The only somewhat similar game I’ve played before is Fire Emblem: Three Houses and I absolutely loved it, but I was much more interested in the gameplay (T-RPGs are 100% up my alley) and social sim was okay as well.
I think my primary issue with P3R is the setting - which I didn’t think would matter so much - I really don’t relate to high school life / issues anymore and it’s making it hard for me to get into the game…
The OST is absolutely S-tier though (and it has made exploring Tartarus much more bearable!)
Spellsiphon changes the gameplay massively. Its what I found when I had the same question as you a few months back and it was exactly what I was looking for.
Single player (desktop): After finishing Red Faction Guerrilla, and trying Red Faction Armageddon but not really liking it, I settled on Just Cause 2 (again). Still as much fun as in 2013, when I last played it.
Single player (Deck): more Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor.
Co-op (desktop): Deep Rock Galactic, if my co-op buddies don’t bail, that is.
Finally managed to kick my current World of Warcraft addiction, or at least massively cut my time with the Remix mode. I did level a new character yesterday, just to get them to max level, but that was pretty much it. There are a few more I plan to level, but I’ll take my time with those, maybe one a week. XP needed for max level is supposed to be slashed soon, because of the new expansion, so the already short level time should be even shorter.
I’m also done with the Diablo 4 season. I didn’t enjoy playing Minion Necromancer at all, and couldn’t be bothered to grind for a different build. Just like the last few times, I finished the Season Journey, and killed one of the new giga versions of the bosses (Tormented Duriel), although I needed help with that. The next season is supposed to start soon-ish (4-5 weeks or something), so I’ll take a break until then and hopefully choose something I enjoy more.
Went back to Dave the Diver, did just one dive, but didn’t really feel it. My extended break with the game really killed my enthusiasm. I might try again here or there, but who knows. There are so many other games I want to try, this might just be it for Dave.
Started Crab Champions, a roguelike shooter, based on the Crab Rave song (I guess). It’s in Early Access, fun for a couple of hours, but lacks variety, so it can get boring relatively quickly. I’ll wait for some more updates or the full release. This game also has multiplayer, so I gotta convince some of my friends to get it, since that’s always more fun.
I have only four more objectives to finish the season journey in Diablo 4: Season 4. Right now I'm balancing between running through nightmare dungeons to level up my glyphs and taking on Helltides.
I finished the main story line for Mad Max and only have to clean up the rest of the map. But I won't do that now, will probably just pop in every few days to do stuff.
Still Wakes The Deep came out recently, and I didn't know much about it other than it takes place on an ocean oil rig near Scotland and is Lovecraftian in nature. I was really looking forward to it, because usually Lovecraftian games center around a detective MC, so this taking place on an oil rig seemed like a refreshing concept, but I ended up extremely disappointed. It started off like Amnesia meets The Thing meets Alien Isolation, but unlike Amnesia, there's not any puzzles. And unlike Alien Isolation, there's not any combat or action. Just go here, pull lever, sneak there, have a little chase, flail through awful QTEs (and jesus, there were a lot of them). It made for a very boring ride with bland and shallow story where nothing is explained. The accents were fun though.
I picked up Subnautica again. I'm determined to actually finish it this time. I think my issue in my previous attempts was spending too much time working on building a massive base, so my plan is to just build necessities this round. I think it's working so far? Right now all I have is a moonpool with some storage, a fabricator, and a med station. I'm not sure how long to "story" is, but I feel like I'm making good progress.
Still Pokemon Red. I’m beginning to regret my choices. The choice to include Blue-exclusives, and trade evolutions, because PKHex makes it so easy to do. The choice to try to keep a selection of various typings caught up in level, so I’d have some decent coverage versus brute forcing.
Having the trio of starters. I think I’ve grown to hate Bulbasaur, at this point. Every time I go to drop him into my party, all I can remember is “Not very effective”, over and over again. Well into the 20s, still taking 2-3 Vine Whips to take out a level 6 Kakuna.
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