This right here. I'd never, ever, go back to playing vanilla Skyrim after playing with mods. Mods make the game sooooooo much better.

I like customizing my game.

I agree that no game is perfect right out of the box. Part of that is objective shortcomings, but much of it I think is that the definition of a perfect game is as varied as the number of players on this forum. Happily, gamesas realizes that and one of the best features of the game is the CK and resultant mods. That allows each of us to get much closer to what is a 'perfect' game for them.

I like the 'feel' and atmosphere of Skyrim and played it vanilla for several hundred hours to make sure I really knew what I wanted changed. Now I run with a moderate number of mods that address a plethora of small things and enjoy the game ever so much more.

Ok... So now mods are the equivalent of after-market rims? What the hell is this Critical Miss?

No he's not right. It's only an opinion. Like your opinion that : "A good mod is one where you're not sure if something is added by a mod or part of the vanilla game." An opinion. Nothing else.

I use mods as I see fit. And nobody has anything to say about it.

Once I get a new comp first thing I'm doing is getting skyrim on pc, all the expansions and then modding the hell out of it. Not even going to do one last vanilla playthrough.

To me, vanilla Skyrim is like drinking tea without the milk and sugar (or in my case, honey.) You have your base, but after the first sip you find it to be bland, and at times can leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Add the milk and sugar though, and you’ve got yourself a perfect cuppa

and here I am, actually drinking tea with nothing added for breakfast. xD

Better way I'd explain it is that it's the rushed cake without the icing on it.

Heh!

A bit like Pizza without the toppings.

I know it's pretty obvious, but there's a reason it's called "vanilla" Skyrim.

Some people are totes fine with plain vanilla ice cream (hell, some might consider the game French Vanilla or something fancy) but others feel the need to add their own spin or spice it up.

Maybe it's too hard and lumpy and they need to soften it up a bit. Maybe they want some toppings. Maybe they want to mix in some cookie bits or chunks of chocolate or maybe even a http://www.friendsdriftinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/chickencone.jpg and pretty much make a new kind of ice cream out of the vanilla base.

Some people might forego eating it and dedicate themselves to coming up with new and better ideas for toppings and mixes instead.

Right.....first off.......tea should only be drunk without milk or sugar and no other additives. If it's bitter then you are over stewing your tea bag mate. How can you taste the tea, if your really drinking hot sugary milk? I converted to black without sugar about thirty years ago and never looked back.

Ok next up........the game! First admission.......I'm on Xbox so therefore only vanilla, but here's my take on the mod scene. Yes it must be great to have those improvement mods and we all hate the wrinkly noses. But if you are the type who likes to showcase your game progress achievements, then mods make that all null and void! Vanilla is the benchmark, the level playing field, the common understanding. I find it almost, well irksome I guess, when some folk say how they have achieved this or that level. And Skyrim is soooooo easy etc etc. then you find out that they have just gone into their little control centre and tweaked the armour stat, awarded themselves a gazillion Septims to avoid all that tedious dungeon crawling to buy expensive stuff. Then they make changes to soften the bad guys and decide they thoroughly deserve the amazing modded sword of ultimate baddie bashing. PAH! Mod if you want, it's your game, but don't even think of comparing your progress or ability and achievements with anyone on vanilla. Even if you claim to be using the 'makes things realistic and tough' mod..... How would anyone Not using that mod have any way of knowing what that means?

If I could use mods, would I? Hell yeah! But only realistic graphics with higher def to cure those wrinkly noses. Oh, and maybe very high heels for all female warriors cos that's realistic in my world...... Erm. Well, I mean could I do that? Right..... That's it !! I am off to buy a high end pc right now, ha!

So is vanilla a good way to play?........... if you want to see the best the game world can be, then no! But if you want to pit yourself against the program, survive it, and share your bask in the glory of your hard won and well deserved achievements then it's the only way.....

Oh god no, Over the years I have tried,tested and settled on 190+ mods that I use in each and every play through.

Vanilla Skyrim only looks good from a distance, up close the textures are absolutely terrible.

Mods like Climates of Tamriel, Sounds of Skyrim and 83Willows-101 bugs bring the game to life.

Add in mods like Vivid Landscapes, Skyrim Flora Overhaul and a ton of mesh replacers and 4k texture replacers and things start to look real good.

Not forgetting content mods like Immersive armours/weapons/creatures etc and entire new landscape + quest mods like Falskaar and moonpath to elsweyr.

Plus I have several mods that I simply 'would not' play without anymore like XP32 maximum skeleton, FNIS and immersive first person.

Sorry but no, If I had to give up my mods I would shelf the game, simple as....It is way to bland and boring for me without mods.

My Skyrim looks and sounds absolutely stunning and is great fun to play <---Vanilla Skyrim (for me) is not fun at all, looks horrible, lacks any quality ambient sounds has very poor quests and content.

I think I must've missed the part where I announced I was playing Skyrim competitively. Its a single player game.

Skyrim is not of course competitive, but folk do showcase their achievements in forums and we all like to share our experience, which is why we are here! if we were competitive mate, we'd have a leader board like online first person shooters. I think you know what I was getting at...... I don't hate modders ok! I'm just saying that those who do compare their progress or worse, run skyrim down, saying its too easy or hard can't compare their views if they are running a modded game. When I have said in the past how a certain feature is annoying cos it gets me killed, how much more annoying is a poster response like ' oh I just turn down this slider or install that patch etc' now see where
I'm coming from? On vanilla, if it's hard its hard, tough luck. So if you manage it that makes it all the more satisfying......

In fact you know what, I will rise to the bait on this AQ. In a sense, it could be argued that if you have a wish, maybe a need, to engage with other players on forums, then skyrim is indeed competitive. Most of us like to say what we have found or where our char have been and many, like me, expound opinions too. Why is that? It's because we don't want to play in perfect isolation. So yes AQ, skyrim is single player, who could argue with that. But can there be competition....you bet! It's unverified progress of course and not scored, no one can be top at skyrim, but we still like to think we have done well.....compared to what? Well the things other posters have achieved. Does there have to be competition.....no! Do I make a point of trying to out play anyone else....no! But I do compete with the game itself every time I play because I choose to play DiD and as hard as vanilla allows, Legendary. That is arguably tough, and because I go on forums to talk about it,
I find others who do similar and we compare and sympathise our predicaments and progress. Now here's the point!!! That you did miss........... Only on the Vanilla game is it possible to fully respect each other's hard won progress. To know what you and they went through to get there....I'm talking maybe hundreds of hours hard faught game play, without a reload, against a tough vanilla game. If you say oh I found it soooo easy to do that, but by the way I'm modded upto the ceiling, then what validity is there in that?

I don't believe this actually happens at all. I need to see this for myself.

Hell, I constantly [censored]ed about game-breaking bugs post 1.9 patch and ridiculously easy or tedious gameplay on the 360 version long before I moved to PC.

I don't feel the need to drink black tea made from supposedly high quality leaves but has been ruined by improper pesticide use and poor oxidation methods.

I can't go back to unmodded Skyrim after playing with mods.

I like vanilla just fine, but there are so many great mods out there where i can enhance the vanilla experience or tweak it abit to my liking so i tend to run with a few mods that fixes problems,enhance graphics, immersion and AI or adds new armors or spells that fit vanilla. The closest thing i run to an overhaul type mod is http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55677/? and a vampire mod like Better Vampires.

I just don't think the games needs any big overhauling unlike Oblivion.

Only overhaul i ever use(thinks Mod Organizer) is Requiem, but it makes it a completely diffirent game and ironically, makes it worse for both immersion and roleplaying for me so only ever play it when i'm in the mood to powergame and want a challage but not in the mood for Dark Souls.

Well, I didn't say I drank high quality tea, just shop bought branded tea bags. And I try not to care too much about oxidation and pesticides....hell the only way to beat that would be to grow your own......now there's a thought! But with black tea, you taste the tea....that's all I'm saying. Um! Just to add, I do occasionally drink posh tea ya know! But not that green gunpowder lapsang bonfire ashes stuff. And for the record I'm not actually rubbishing non black tea drinkers either. But coffee drinkers, Pah! Scum of the earth, now don't get me started

Ha ha ha! It may amuse some to know that my wife just read this over my shoulder..........and she only drinks coffee. That's me in the brown sticky stuff for the rest of the evening

Well I like skyrim vanilla but I am never going back to it not after I figured out about dawnguard dragonborn and hearthfire but I would have liked vanilla skyrim a little more if the creators had contained working on updates for it and eventually implant the mods in the game and make it possible to marry serana cause I'm sick of everyone complaining even today

Tea would only taste of hot sugary milk if you made it out of nothing but sugar and milk... and that is not how you make tea

I stopped taking this post seriously after I read achievements... To be honest, not once have I felt that this game has ever been competitive, it's been about sharing each other’s unique experiences, stories, characters ect. Competitiveness has played a minor part, and rarely do people do as you described. In fact, most of the time it seems to be the complete opposite, aka making the game more challenging. Because honestly, the vanilla game was easy. Too easy.

P.S: Saying that's how tea should be drunk is basically you saying that the game should only be played vanilla...

I know you say that in jest but if the reason for disliking coffee drinkers is due to the caffeine, then I'm sorry to say that black tea is just as bad, if not worse at times.

Still, coffee

OP, each to his/her own I say. If you like vanilla, good on ya!

I prefer better looking textures and improved graphics, which fortunately someone modded.

I like some specific armor looks (big Witcher fan), so like to add that and immersive armors on NPCs in.

I like harder combat, tougher monsters, and really tough dragons, so fortunately people made ASIS, Deadly monsters, deadly dragons, deadly combat, etc.

I like better animation, so luckily there is FNIS, XPMS, Mystic Knight, immersive animations, better female animations, etc...

I have one NPC who's actually interesting to talk to and travel with, although not the best at anything (Hi Vilja)

I could go on, but I'm sure you get my drift....

And lastly, as a HUGE Dragon Age Origins fan, my personal lore is that I am that son of the Warden and Morrigan who captured the old gods soul (works for my Dragonborn eh!), so having a few artifacts from Ferelden and the Grey Wardens makes my single player experience all that much better.

Nothing in my game makes Skyrim easier - it's easy enough as it is, but as others have said, why have it bland, when you can add herbs and spice that enriches the experience?

I love the smell of coffee. Almost never drink it myself though. Usually only when I've already been up for two or three days working on a tight deadline with no end in sight and really need a boost to keep me going.

I do drink tea and soda on a semi-regular basis though. Prefer tea, trying to cut back on soda but it's more convenient most of the time.

As for achievements, I have to agree that they lose their meaning if mods let you get them easier. It's part of the reason I didn't mod anything at all until after I'd gotten them. I've unlocked all except for Oblivion Walker, which for some reason refuses to unlock despite my completing it several times over.

I don't know what are you talking about?!

Most of the people i have seen here love vanilla Skyrim.

The the mod that i use, that can be considered ''overhaul'' the most is using Oblivion and Morrowind's soundtrack along with Skyrim's.

All this talk of tea and cake is making me crave for a cream tea Oh, so bad, yet soo good.

Pretty much But the base is, and will always be, the most important part

Heh, same here. Love the smell, but very rarely drink it.

I remember reading a while back that the Oblivion Walker achievement was bugged, though I think there was a fix/workaround for it.

Replying to Vaen.........Umm, noooooo. I really was talking about tea! I said plenty about the game in the bit where I talked about...the game. But you drink and play as you wish......of course.

But vanilla skyrim easy! Well my friend you can MAKE vanilla skyrim as easy as you wish......that's what the slider is for. But ya gotta compare apples with apples. Which was the entire point of my preceding ramblings. Here's my build......light armour, dagger and bow, no followers, legendary, dead is dead.....ya telling me that's easy? Really? I once, recently, got to level 38. In three years of trying hard! On legendary everything is lethal for the first twenty levels. Maybe you need a fact or two to inform the opinion....ok, here's one. On level ten in Light armour, which by that time you won't have had time or opportunity to get your armour much over a hundred, (mine was 68). The ice wolves you have to face or outwit on the seven thousand steps are three bite lethal. Add to that their speed and that there are two of them and you are screeeeeeewed man! Ok I can get past them ,but easy it aint! And that was just an example, want another......a single bear swipe is one hit lethal as is a troll swipe a Sabrecat swipe and a hit from any two handed wielder. Still easy is it? Ok, one more. Upto level twenty and until you get good magic resistance and enchanted magic resistant apparel, a single, without warning, zap from a high level,shock mage is instant death. Then you have to delete all saves and restart from the prison cart......still easy? I don't think so!

Hrm, I just posted in a thread like this over in another neck of the forums

To continue the coffee/tea anology, I mod for content, not so much to change the actual game itself. I find the iced coffee with milk simple and good enough as is, but I would rather that I drink 5 glasses of it rather than just one. Just bolting on extra content to the game to give it more playtime is all I really ask for.

Indeed

I have not, and will never play dead is dead. I honestly don't see the fun in it. What if you die due to a bug/glitch/kill cam lock that you could have easily avoided? Not cool. But anywho, I always played on the hardest difficulty when I was on the Xbox, and it was still easy. In the end I had to limit perks, stop using followers, limit potions or not use them at all, and even avoid enchanting/smithing just to make the game challenging...which is bad game design imo =s I shouldn't have to do that.

On the PC version, one of the first few mods I installed were the ones that increased enemy AI/difficulty ect. Deadly Dragons, Dragon Combat Overhaul, Immersive Creatures, SkyTest, Revenge of the Enemies, SkyRe ect. Now I have to bring followers, use certain perk trees and so on If I want to survive. I now understand what Aela says when she talks about clawing for every breath. Fighting to live another day ect.