I play skyrim because the modding community lets you make the game whatever you want it to be. Don't like the default skill trees? Skyrim Redone/Perkus Maximus. Want more worldly immersion? Grahpics overhaul for trees, grass, water, rocks and towns... hi-res road signs, even mods that add chimneys to every building that has a fireplace. Want harder combat? Deadly Combat, Ultimate Combat, or Duel - Combat Realism... and add on a light sprinkling of Combat Evolved for even more difficulty. Want Dragons and wild bears to kick your ass? Throw on some Dragon Combat Overhaul or Animal Tweaks. Don't like realism? Add anime/jrpg armors and weapons, npc hireling waifus, and mods that crank the bloom up to make the game feel videogamey. Want guns? Add project flintlock rifle. Want magic to be fucking amazing? Try Perkus Maximus (mentioned above) or a magic-dedicated overhaul such as Simple Magic Overhaul, Forgotten Magic Redone, Invested Magic, Smartcast, Empowered Magic... the list goes on. Want the athletics system from Morrowind, where running and jumping levels up your ability and lets you run longer, jump higher, and even unlock perks like running across water? Throw in Athletics Training. Want to roleplay as Corvo from Dishonored? There's a mod that adds all the Dishonored spells, another for his mask, and another for an animated folding steel rapier. Want a totally absurd experience? Give mudcrabs tophats and monocles or turn dragons into flying Macho Man Randy Savage. Throw in lightsabers while you're at it. For real - all of these actually exist.
I mean, shit. There's basically no end to what you can do with it. If you seriously can't make Skyrim fun with the tens of thousands of mods available, the problem is you, not Skyrim.
That said, vanilla skyrim is... pretty bad. One of the "required" mods that nearly everyone runs is unofficial patches to fix hundreds(/thousands) of bugs Bethesda couldn't be bothered with. Without them, even going through the story mode will often find you with game-halting bugs that you have to dig through console commands to fix. The skill trees are somewhat redundant, magic is a weak shitfestival not worth speccing into, and it's "sorta pretty" but it's not 10/10 amazeballs. Even on the hardest setting, combat is a joke; dragons and wild animals are very weak and require no strategy. In that regard, Skyrim is far worse than past legendary games such as Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment, which were fucking amazing out of the box and modding simply made them more amazing. Skyrim follows Oblivion's lead; the games are shitfestivals out of the box and absolutely need mods to be any fun at all. And, as mentioned above, the collection of mods you throw in will vastly alter your gameplay experience. But if you can't make them fun at all, you simply aren't trying hard enough. You should probably go back to Baby's First RPGs like Fable or Dragon Age.
I just threw together a collection of 180 mods not long ago and started taking screenshots, you can view 'em here [http://imgur.com/a/qxKgQ]. It's pretty much like playing a movie.
I mean, shit. There's basically no end to what you can do with it. If you seriously can't make Skyrim fun with the tens of thousands of mods available, the problem is you, not Skyrim.
That said, vanilla skyrim is... pretty bad. One of the "required" mods that nearly everyone runs is unofficial patches to fix hundreds(/thousands) of bugs Bethesda couldn't be bothered with. Without them, even going through the story mode will often find you with game-halting bugs that you have to dig through console commands to fix. The skill trees are somewhat redundant, magic is a weak shitfestival not worth speccing into, and it's "sorta pretty" but it's not 10/10 amazeballs. Even on the hardest setting, combat is a joke; dragons and wild animals are very weak and require no strategy. In that regard, Skyrim is far worse than past legendary games such as Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment, which were fucking amazing out of the box and modding simply made them more amazing. Skyrim follows Oblivion's lead; the games are shitfestivals out of the box and absolutely need mods to be any fun at all. And, as mentioned above, the collection of mods you throw in will vastly alter your gameplay experience. But if you can't make them fun at all, you simply aren't trying hard enough. You should probably go back to Baby's First RPGs like Fable or Dragon Age.
I just threw together a collection of 180 mods not long ago and started taking screenshots, you can view 'em here [http://imgur.com/a/qxKgQ]. It's pretty much like playing a movie.
