Overall Modding Strategies?

[rweizer]

I've never really posted on modding forums but I enjoy TTW enough and it's late enough here I wanted to pose a question to whoever wants to answer.

In modding Bethesda games (or even in general), what do you find to be your overall "strategy" or "method" to be when creating a mod list for playing the game rather than creating mods? I'm an end-user and not a modder and my "tastes" in mods over time have changed.

When I was in my early 20s I flocked to mods like Project Nevada and Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. Now I'm turning 30 next month and I find that I opt for more of a vanilla with sprinkles approach that values stability over extra content out the wazoo. Instead of something like DarnUI I use Vanilla UI Plus and I don't have anything like JSawyer or Project Nevada. Only real exceptions to this rule are things that add too many nice features despite being more "chocolate" in nature than vanilla (mostly with Oblivion [NorthernUI and Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul come to mind]).

If you read my crappy wall of text, thank you and congratulations! How do you feel that over time your focus in playing modded games has changed? Is it similar to mine or the inverse?

[UsagiPyon]

I've never really posted on modding forums but I enjoy TTW enough and it's late enough here I wanted to pose a question to whoever wants to answer.

In modding Bethesda games (or even in general), what do you find to be your overall "strategy" or "method" to be when creating a mod list for playing the game rather than creating mods? I'm an end-user and not a modder and my "tastes" in mods over time have changed.

When I was in my early 20s I flocked to mods like Project Nevada and Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. Now I'm turning 30 next month and I find that I opt for more of a vanilla with sprinkles approach that values stability over extra content out the wazoo. Instead of something like DarnUI I use Vanilla UI Plus and I don't have anything like JSawyer or Project Nevada. Only real exceptions to this rule are things that add too many nice features despite being more "chocolate" in nature than vanilla (mostly with Oblivion [NorthernUI and Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul come to mind]).

If you read my crappy wall of text, thank you and congratulations! How do you feel that over time your focus in playing modded games has changed? Is it similar to mine or the inverse?

For me, I tried the whole package - Project Nevada, Asurah/Hitman's animation, Solid Project, Hi-res textures, Weapons of Millenia, WMX, EVE, FCO, Drag's stuffs etc and overtime I just find that they are just for novelty. Empty feeling mods that does not really add to anything except for being gimmicky and nice to have for a short while.

All the hires textures ,animations mods and ENBs just felt unneeded and unnecessary unless you like to frequently upload screenshots/videos of your game. ENBs especially makes me puke with all the overused DoF and cancer inducing colors which makes me wonder how can one stand using them. I have not found a single ENB settings that are pleasing but that is just me.

I have reverted to vanilla for quite awhile now and adding only mods that were correctly converted for TTW 3.2.2. If you like vanilla I suggest searching for mc_tammer/user826's mods as his/her mods were built using base game assets. (https://www.nexusmods.com/users/21167894) My strategy of modding is to add any mods that does not break the functionality of TTW, easily self patched and adds to game play (eg, A World of Pain)

[Lyaneri]

Empty feeling mods that does not really add to anything except for being gimmicky and nice to have for a short while.

Pretty much this. Stopped a lot of playthroughs because game became a chore under 30 hours with lot of mods. My last satisfying playthrough of Fallout was in 2015 when I played TTW for the first time and did around 80% of all the content with mostly vanilla setup. Only noticeable mods in that playthrough where JIP's "Realistic Weapon Overheating" and "Selective Fire".

Will start new playthrough of TTW when 3.2.3 releases with only "Vicious Wastes" plus some quality of life mods like: "lStewieAl's Tweaks", "Unnecessary Tweaks", "Vanilla UI+", "Improved Recipe Menu", "FOV Slider" etc.

Had a satisfying start of New Vegas last year but then I added "Coito Ergo Sum" mod and played simultaneously both mod and vanilla New Vegas content for some time and game became unsatisfying mess again :/ I rly liked mod and it's story but it just messed a lot of things. On the plus side it made me aproach these "adventure/new lands" mods bit differently. Now I install these type of mods somewhere in the middle of playthrough, play only that mod till I finished it, uninstall it afterwards and load old pre-mod save. It's much more satisfying this way because these mods are more ofthen than not quite buggy and just make you overpowered or mess up rest of the game. I'm playing Skyrim like this now and it's very satisfying. (Well that's bit of an lie, I play Mass Effect trilogy now, lol. But I didn't ditch Skyrim playthrough it's just on hold!)

[SirDanest]

Personally I've played New Vegas too many times to not mod it to death, with as much new content as I can find.
And the sheer number of patches and fixes (some are just my personal opinion and may not seem like "fixes" to everyone) has become quite a long list.
Still, a lot of mods like project nevada and solid project have become almost infamous for their problems and instabilities... I never agreed that those were must-haves, even if I like some of the things that they do.
But yeah, the exaggerated mod limit frustrates me on New Vegas. I easily run 300+ mods on Skyrim and fallout 4, and even with all the merging in the world I'm never going to be able to get this on New Vegas, at least not without causing instability or some other unexpected problem that I won't notice until hours into the game.