Skyrim for someone who didn't really care for Skyrim

[The Almighty Aardvark]

There's currently a Steam sale where Skyrim's on sale for 75% off. Finally having a computer that might be able to run it, I am giving its purchase some serious consideration. Only caveat? I didn't really care much for Skyrim.

Okay, that might need some explanation. I've owned the game on the Ps3 since it came out and it ended up being a big disappointment. However, I hear that what really brings the game to life is its modding potential. What I'm wondering then, is if I disliked Skyrim without mods, would I like it with them?

List of things I didn't like about Skyrim:

Magic:
Unless I wanted to drop the difficulty down by a huge amount, I found that using magic kind of boiled down to:
- Attacking an enemy
- Running backwards attacking it repeatedly until I ran out of magic
- Run away until it's forgotten about me
- Lather, rinse, repeat until enemy/group of enemies is dead

I very well might have been doing something wrong, but I couldn't really find a better approach without trying to get the enemies stuck in an area where they couldn't reach me. There's not exactly a good means of dodging your enemy's attacks and keeping in close, avoiding their attacks really seemed to boil down to keeping distance between you and backtracking through the levels

I also didn't like how the majority of magic seemed to boil down to "special bullets", I don't exactly expect a magic system like Magicka's in this game, but some more variety than shooting a bullet at the enemy that may have a special effect would have made it more interesting to me.

Melee combat:
Oh my god. Everything.

Maybe I just never got a hang of it, but I really didn't like anything about melee combat in Oblivion or Skyrim

Impact:
No matter what I did, or what I became, I never really felt like I'd achieved anything. The only real difference my actions caused was people occasionally calling me something else. I wasn't treated any differently and I don't remember thinking any of the perks were worth it.

Lifeless, uninteresting world:
I just couldn't bring myself to care about the world. Seeing Solitude for the first time was the only time where I thought "Wow, I actually want to visit that place". The world all looks very samey. The dungeons are... slightly better than Oblivion, at least I don't remember them re-using layouts and rooms. But there seems to be little variety in appearance of dungeons. I can fit basically everywhere I've visited to "Caves infested with Draugr", "Caves infested with falmer", "Caves infested with spiders" or the actually different looking Dwarven Ruins"

The characters all seemed lifeless to me too. Despite having tried to play through it many times, I can't think of any characters that stuck out to me in any sort of way. I remember some names, but nothing about the character's personality. The personalities all mushed together in my head. I couldn't bring myself to care about anyone.


----------------

So, these are my main complaints. I'm not here to get in a debate about Skyrim, all I'm wondering is, is it possible that I'd enjoy the game with mods even with my issues with the standard game?

 

[Fat Hippo]

I would argue: no. Definitely not. IF you didn't like the world there's no mod that will fix it for you. And while some mods claim to improve the combat and make it more challenging, I haven't played any that actually make the system work in an overall functional manner. If you found the base experience unsatisfying to such an extreme degree, I rather doubt mods are going to save it for you.

And before anyone gets angry at me: there are A LOT of fantastic mods out there made by very talented people. But judging by the complaints the OP had, in my estimation I don't think any mods exist that overhaul the game in a manner that would make the game pleasing for him.

 

[Aurion]

It sounds like you just flat didn't like Skyrim to be brutally honest. No mod's gonna fix that.

Happens to everyone eventually- there will be a game everyone freaks out about that you just do not like.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I should probably clarify, I don't need all of these issues fixed to like the game, just fixing any of them would go a long way towards me enjoying the game. And at $5 all I would want is to get some enjoyment out of it

I really like a lot of what Skyrim was trying to do, just for the specified reasons the experience really fell flat for me. I like the idea of developing my character and exploring an open fantasy world. I just wish it was implemented differently. I have a weird relationship with the game. I will pick it up every couple months with a sudden desire to play the game, but I can only play for half an hour before I remember why I don't like it and have to put it down.

I briefly enjoyed Skyrim with my bow and stealth playthrough because that allowed me to avoid the combat mechanics as much as possible.

 

[Spanglish Guy]

I would probably stay away from the game if you don't like the world. The combat can be improved with mods to make it harder even if it's still pretty basic, but like someone who posted above me said there is no amount of mods which will improve the world for you so this game probably isn't for you.

 

[Seishisha]

This is alittle of topic but as somone who has put a few hundred hours into skyrim i can honestly say i agree with your assesment, the game is rife with problems and no amount of mods can fix the core, its mostly window dressing and balance tweaks in terms of what is availsble (i actualy never played with any 'serious' mods), what i personaly found enjoyable about the game (and ultimatly the one reason i kept playing) was simply traveling around and exploring the world bethesda had made, even if it was a very shallow one its pretty damn vast.

I treat the game abit like a walking simulator but with some monsters and quests, going off the main path here, exploring a cave there, pretty much just avoiding all main story and faction stuff especialy if i'd done it on a previous playthrough. This approach may not be for everyone but considering the price of the base game during the current sale it's probably worth picking up, and despite its many flaw's i'd still recommend to somone who was curious (again especialy while on sale)

Reguardless of your descion to buy or not i hope my rambling helped even a little bit.

 

[Inglorious891]

I would argue: no. Definitely not. IF you didn't like the world there's no mod that will fix it for you. And while some mods claim to improve the combat and make it more challenging, I haven't played any that actually make the system work in an overall functional manner. If you found the base experience unsatisfying to such an extreme degree, I rather doubt mods are going to save it for you.

I'm gonna agree with Hippo here. Mods may claim to drastically and/or fix Skyrim, but in my experience they make tweaks to it versus completely changing it. No amount of modding is going to make Skyrim enjoyable if you find it as unfun as you're describing.

The other thing concerning mods is the fact that you will run into trouble with compatability, etc. Unless you run a small handful of mods (which you wouldn't do if you really wanted to enjoy Skyrim as the modding would be fairly intensive) there's going to be unexplainable mod compatability issues that will make the game not run/CTD every five seconds. The work required to fix that shit is more than I'd recommend you do since you wouldn't get much enjoyment out of a modded Skyirm anyway. Hell, the work required to mod Skyrim successfully is more work than more people are able to put up with.

If you want though, I can recommend a few mods to get you going if you want.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I'm in a fairly similar position, although I never cared about magic, always play stealth sniper by choice and don't really care about having an impact on the game world. I just found that the world isn't one I'm interested in, it's kinda dull and brown and I don't share the Internet's hard on for Vikings and I hate "you're the chosen one" story lines and so I only got to about level 9 then quit.

I think if the world was one I liked exploring I'd probably go back to it. Any suggestions for making it look less brown and perpetually overcast? (That sounds like it's in line with your last issue OP)

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Ive found mods that make the levelling as well as the magic far, far more enjoyable. However if you absolutely couldnt stand the base game then no amount of mods will fix that

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I've put hundreds of hours onto Skyrim since it launched, but I'd say nearly all of those criticisms are fair - the melee combat isn't really a mechanic or a system, it's just an inane spamfest. The potential of magic should be wide ranging, however, limiting it to duel wielding contradicts that, and eventually forces you to open one kind of menu or another which breaks flow and makes combinations a chore.

...aaand the writing, narrative, and a lot of the voice acting kinda seems about a gen behind the rest of the industry. It's basically one big, dumb cartoony world. You have to go back to Morrowind for a TES that presents an interesting, imaginative world and main questline.

However, for those inclined to it, RP is your friend, especially as I don't think it's an uninteresting world (visually or in terms of lore). Get rid of the HUD (either disable the whole thing on console, or use iHUD on PC), and for me it becomes one of the most immersive and engaging gameworlds I've ever experienced - it's that which I love the incredibly stupid and under-designed Skyrim for, when you're far from any NPC and out in the wilds or down a dungeon.

Mods just change how you get to play in the sandpit - but you need to like the sandpit you're in to really get value out of them.

Of course, once you start to mod - and checking out Gopher's Beginner's Guide To Modding couldn't hurt [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7DlYarj-DdhDG41roBVJfNCqvO5MmKP] - you might get a liking for that in itself; adding new armour/weapons, quests, follower NPC's, chatting with [painfully over-written but occasionally great] Interesting NPC's, messing about with the physics, adding incongruously out of place content that some people just find fun, and so on.

So yeah, you may come to enjoy Skyrim because you enjoy modding it. If it's dirt cheap in a sale then you've not much to lose, but it's not going to stop Skyrim's irrepressible Skyrim-ness and Bethesda's derpy writing/story/'characters'...

 

[Silverbane7]

as someone who put hundreds of hours into the console versions befor getting the steam (legendary is on sale atm as well, which is worth it) edition, i can say there are things to do, provided you prety much ignore the main storyline...
i allways play as a hunter type. so i learn sneak and bow and hunt wolves and bandits lol.
its kind of satisfying to be able to stand right infront of them and be invisible...then shoot em in the backside XD

but darth rosenberg is right. once you start modding, there is much MUCH more to do.

for a more interesting play, you might want to look into some of the enviromental mods.
'wet and cold' on its own is usefull for adding more weather, but it also makes the NPCs react to it.
but the best part comes from the 'wet and cold : holidays' extra. it adds multiple lore friendly holidays into the game. certain days have special events in the cites. flags, and decorations ect appear and there are tables with food ect. you get a more lively feeling. you can add your won holidays too.

there is an alternate start mod too, which starts you (far as i know) in a jail somewhere and lets you NOT be the dragonborn if you what, assuming you dont what to be everyones dogsbody all across skyrim. well..except when you choose to.

you can grab many roleplay type mods, mods to make the weather harder, make the combat more interesting ect. many many mods.
if you didnt like the bland feeling melee, there are mods to make it more interesting. in the top downloaded at the workshop, one that give more veriety in kill moves (i think)

personaly i have
wet and cold
wet and cold : ash and dust (the dragonborn expac add in)
wet and cold : holidays
camping gear of the northern ranger
lore friendly womens hair
viking chainmail armour

(mods i cant remember the names of but generaly do what im naming them)
better smelting
better crafting
craft cloth clothing

they basicaly add that little something i missed.

there are even huge add on level mods that add large map areas like elsiwer and so on.
modding can fix it, if you feel its broke

*edit.
if its the fact that all the NPCs look the same....there are a few mods that can help that. theres a majour armour overhaul that alters most of the gear in the game, by making it more varied. instead of everyone being a nord, there are various armours other than nordish and imperial such as orcish and redguard. and when i say that, i mean like how there are 4-5 types of fur armour, they make 4 or 5 styles of the same type of armour. and i dont mean the craftable style gear, i mean orcish looking leather and iron and steal rather than just orcish type. and they are even distributed to the NPCs for more veriety.
honestly, if you look, there is allways someone that has fixed what you want, be it NPC diversity or world blandness.

tell you want. check back in a year or so. with any luck skywind will have been done some and you can visit a fully remade morrowind while using the skyrim engin. once thats done, people will probably port the old diversity mods from the old morrowind days over and it will be better.
while there isnt any point in paying for a game you dont want right now, there is no cost in favoriting it in steam and popping back there now and again to see if anyone has made more mods to fix what you dont like. thats free after all. (dont forget to check the nexus too, a lot of mods only go there and not to the workshop)

 

[Imre Csete]

Just buy it for the eventual Skywind release. I'm not going to pick that game up again until it's out.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

After considering everything said, I think I'm going to go with the majority response and not get the game. While there are some interesting looking mods, the overwhelming sentiment I'm getting is that the mods improve the game, but they're not going to be enough of an overhaul to fix my issues with it in a substantial way. In any case, thanks for the responses! At the very least it looks like I'll be saving myself a lot of headaches with downloading the various mods.

If you could just give me your banking information I can distribute the $5 saved evenly between you as a token of my appreciation.

...

Don't actually give me your banking information.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

yeah I would have to agree agree with a majority of the problems you pointed out. I guess one could say you have to role play to enjoy the game. In order to make that possible it would first require semi-decent writing and I must being completely apathetic to the games world and it's inhabitants.

Yeah I would say skyrim is not for you and mods will not be able to fix the lack of impact and the uninteresting world full of uninteresting ncp's.

 

[Easton Dark]

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19281/?

Requiem changes magic effects and adds new spells. Mages are high-level enemies now, so if you become one, you can mow through anything rather than run and hide for magicka regen.

It also changes enemy combat AI where they block and counter you more, attack when open, and damage is massively increased so one mistake is deadly for both you and your opponents. Instantly makes melee combat better.

It also changes the perks so that the choices you make with them matter significantly more. Perks are the end all of Requiem. They're the most important choices in the game.


For impact, Guard Dialogue Overhaul and Civil War Overhaul could be nice. Guards react to your status more accurately, and you decide the fate of the civil war rather than have auto-won battles. Win the war, lose the war, it's up to you. Not sure of any mods to make the vanilla quests more impactful.

For same-y dungeons, nothing is really there to make vanilla dungeons more or less cave-y, but there are mods that just add flat out new dungeons that are cool. And to spice up the dungeons already there, you could get Skyrim Immersive Creatures which change up the creatures you encounter with different looks and entirely newly designed enemies as well.

There's also a 2GB mod called Interesting NPCs which add, like, 250 new voiced NPCs and 50+ quests to go along with them. Might try that. There's also mods that expand on vanilla cities and add new ones to make them look and function better as actual cities.

There's most of your criticisms solved. I would go for it. Except don't get the vanilla version for $5. That limits your modding capabilities.

 

[ThreeName]

Impact:
Lifeless, uninteresting world:

Ain't nothing gonna fix these two. Trust me, I fucking tried. Especially that second one. Two completely interchangeable groups of white Scandanavian-type people fighting over a land full of farms and assholes? Fucking exhilarating.

 

[Flames66]

Good to see someone who is willing to give it a try.

I hear that what really brings the game to life is its modding potential. What I'm wondering then, is if I disliked Skyrim without mods, would I like it with them? All I'm wondering is, is it possible that I'd enjoy the game with mods even with my issues with the standard game?

That is a distinct possibility. Perhaps I can help.

Magic:
Unless I wanted to drop the difficulty down by a huge amount, I found that using magic kind of boiled down to:
- Attacking an enemy
- Running backwards attacking it repeatedly until I ran out of magic
- Run away until it's forgotten about me
- Lather, rinse, repeat until enemy/group of enemies is dead

This is a major problem with the game. Fortunately for me, I prefer a sword and bow approach, but I recommend:

Spoiler: Magic Duel

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18763/?

Melee combat:
Oh my god. Everything.

Maybe I just never got a hang of it, but I really didn't like anything about melee combat in Oblivion or Skyrim

I personally enjoy the melee combat due to its simplicity, but it's not for everyone. Here are a few mods that might help:

Spoiler: Duel and Ultimate Combat

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/2700/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/36006/?

Impact:
No matter what I did, or what I became, I never really felt like I'd achieved anything. The only real difference my actions caused was people occasionally calling me something else. I wasn't treated any differently and I don't remember thinking any of the perks were worth it.

Not sure I can help with this one. I didn't want to side with either of the factions in the war questline, so I don't know how it plays out. Maybe an alternate faction would help. Here's a mod I'm planning to check out:

Spoiler

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27369/?

Lifeless, uninteresting world:
I just couldn't bring myself to care about the world. Seeing Solitude for the first time was the only time where I thought "Wow, I actually want to visit that place". The world all looks very samey. The dungeons are... slightly better than Oblivion, at least I don't remember them re-using layouts and rooms. But there seems to be little variety in appearance of dungeons. I can fit basically everywhere I've visited to "Caves infested with Draugr", "Caves infested with falmer", "Caves infested with spiders" or the actually different looking Dwarven Ruins"

Search "dungeon" on the nexus for new and interesting places to explore. Here's something that might get you started:

Spoiler: Marian's Immersive Dungeons

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/35841/?

Characters
The characters all seemed lifeless to me too. Despite having tried to play through it many times, I can't think of any characters that stuck out to me in any sort of way. I remember some names, but nothing about the character's personality. The personalities all mushed together in my head. I couldn't bring myself to care about anyone.

I feel you there, many of the default characters didn't seem to have much character too them. Perhaps this mod will help:

Spoiler: Helgen Reborn

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/35841/?

This mod adds many new and interesting characters. They are fully voiced with distinct personalities and traits. I can honestly say I remember them far more than any of the main characters of default Skyrim.

I hope this is helpful for you and you can get many hours of enjoyment out of a modded Skyrim.

In case you want to mod some more, here are a few mods I use and think are awesome!

Spoiler: List

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9782/? The Moonpath to Elsweyr

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3863/? Skyui

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37081/? Hattori Hanzo Katanas

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23089/? Hot Springs Home - Riverwood

 

[The Random Critic]

I too wish for Beth to bring back magic creation

It's one of the many great things in TES. It might make the game too easy, but it's a single player game.

That begin said, after finally trying requiem 2 weeks ago. I found that the world of Skyrim to have plenty coherent details (at least more then oblivion) for those who choose to pay attention. (Heck, I almost would say it's almost as good as the older TES's)

It's just the massive "streamlining" of it's own stats systems what I cannot forgive about this game. (something which has been in every TES up until recently. Along with the fact it has been working within every TES.)

As to be more on topic, it gets better later? Though to be fair, Skyrim has been way more "in your face" then the previous Elder scroll games. (regarding the main questline/faction) So it's not like Bethesda isn't trying to make their game appeal to even more people.

 

[Sansha]

Magic and melee combat in Skyrim is bullshit. Chivalry and Dark Messiah M&M nailed fun melee combat, and I can't think of any others that have felt even satisfying.

The kick I get in Skyrim is sneaking. I actually enjoy the Thieves Guild story and quests, especially getting through a complicated, well-patrolled dungeon without killing anybody or even been spotted.

The most essential mod I have is this - Unlevelled World.
The way the game world works is that enemies, loot and quest rewards are scaled to your level. Bandits and monsters will be weaker at first, and grow stronger as you level up, and loot will improve as you level as well.
This mod purges that bullshit, and plops you into a world teeming with stuff that will kill you in a single hit, but the loot you can find can be incredible.
For me, it livens the world up by not making it revolve around the player, rather you're put into a world that turns with or without you, and you need to adapt to it, rather than the other way around.
And you need to adapt fast, because one arrow from a bandit - you die. One power-swing from his axe - you die. It forces you to learn to dodge attacks, strike quickly and dodge the next attack, cos you don't get second chances. It's only around level 25 that you start to be able to actually absorb strikes.

And if you want a character with some personality and reason, head to Darklight Tower in The Rift. I shall not spoil.

But really, a lot of stuff in Skyrim bores me. Both main story quest chains are stupid, the dungeon-crawling is laughable and yeah, not a lot of characters have personality. I make my own fun, and that's what you gotta do. Skyrim isn't great at giving you fun, it's great at immersing you in a world. If you're not into that, ain't nothing is going to fix it - it's just not your bag, baby.