User:Rezalon/Mods2

This page is currently being used to give reviews of Skyrim's Creations

Should Already Be In The Game

These creations should have been included in the vanilla game by Bethesda themselves from the beginning.

• Adventurer's Backpack - Adds backpacks which possess a 75-point Fortify Carry Weight enchantment, some of which possessing additional useful enchantments. Incredibly useful for loot hoarders/sellers, such as myself.

• To avoid clipping conflicts with quivers, it's recommended to also install Belt-Fastened Quivers.

• Arcane Archer Pack - Adds six types of craftable magical arrows. Relatively hit or miss (no pun intended). If you can't instakill enemies in stealth for whatever reason (increased difficulty, low damage weapons, low archery skill, etc.), then the fire and ice arrows will be of use as they deal damage to them over time whilst you line up your next shot (the ice arrows also slow enemy movement, so it'll take longer for them to find you). Enchanters and/or those using enchanted weapons will also find use in the soul gem arrow.
• Arcane Accessories - Adds several powerful new spells and robes to the game, useful for any budding mage or anyone who even rarely uses magic.

• Because of the extremely overpowered qualities of the spells and robes in this mod, it is recommended to also install Unofficial Creation Club Updates - Arcane Accessories to balance things out.

• Camping - Gives you the ability to craft camping supplies, which can be used to make a tent to sleep in and a fire to cook soup over. Great if you want to make use of the abilities you get when sleeping, cook on the go, use Survival Mode, or are a roleplayer.
• Chrysamere - Unlike several artefacts in the below Tried and Disliked section, the lack of lore here actually works well with how the sword ended up here (considering the nature of many artefacts that were sold to the Museum of Artifacts in Tribunal). The sword itself's enchantments are incredibly useful for any tank or other damage-absorbing class. The only issue is this Creation may make you miss a plot scene in its respective dungeon as you will be forced to fight the Lost Paladin as this scene plays out.
• Nordic Jewelry - Adds three new types of jewellery which share the Ancient Nord Armour aesthetic, and a quest to find three powerfully enchanted pieces.
• Pets of Skyrim - Adds five new pets (a fox, rabbit, goat, skeever, and spider), each with a unique ability. I would not be recommending this Creation if it weren't for the pack goat, which essentially gives you more carry weight, making looting and selling gear a more practical and profitable venture. The abilities of the other pets are simply not useful.

• Dwarven Armored Mudcrab - Adds a mudcrab pet similar to the pets in the above Creation. Again, I am only recommending this mod for the fact the pet gives you more carry weight.
• Nix-Hound - Adds a Nix-Hound pet similar to the pets in the above Creations. Again, I am only recommending this mod for the fact the pet gives you more carry weight.

• Garthand and Treacleman on Nexus Mods make Unofficial Patches for all Creations fixing various bugs.

Tried and Disliked

Creations I have tried but ultimately did not end up liking and will likely never use again.

• Survival Mode - Arbitrary restrictions for those who hate themselves. You don't even get a reward out of it (like an achievement in New Vegas).
• Staff of Sheogorath - An addition with poorly-implemented lore. Whilst the quest to obtain this artefact actually makes some sense, and the artefact itself is rather powerful for some mage builds, I simply found no use for it in any of my preferred playstyles.
• Ruin's Edge - The enchantments on the bow generally aren't that great makes this Creation relatively useless. Paired with the Arcane Arrows Creation, it could be of some fun, but in terms or practicality it would just be too random to be worth using and relying on to apply an effective effect.
• Shadowrend - Whilst I am a fan of the "fighting your evil clone" trope, the reward is simply unimpressive and not practical (weakness to magic enchant on a two-handed weapon when it requires one free hand to cast a spell?).
• Rare Curios - Although the additions of items from past Elder Scrolls games is a treat, the fact most of them can only be found on the Khajiit caravans makes obtaining these items a bit of a hassle. Additionally, most of the items introduced are ingredients, and as someone who rarely dabbles in alchemy, I simply found no use for it in any of my preferred playstyles.
• Stendarr's Hammer - Absolutely not practical for any playstyle ever. This seems more like something out of a joke mod than anything else.
• Plague of the Dead - There isn't any real point to this Creation. Zombies already exist in the game in the form of Draugr, the Mort Flesh they drop has the exact same properties as human hearts, and there are far better options in terms of conjurations.
• Wild Horses - With the abundance of horses in the vanilla game (including a horse you can summon at any time in the form of Arvak), this Creation has no real use.
• Myrwatch - With no pathway leading to the tower, requiring manoeuvring around rocky hills or swimming down a stream, the location is not easily accessible unless you have previously found it and can fast-travel to it. Additionally, both rooms in the tower are cramped and cluttered with random books and junk that aims to liven the place up a bit. However, because there are simply too many items on shelves, tables, etc., objects tend to collide with one another weirdly, resulting in them falling off or even flying across the room. Vanilla alternatives to Myrwatch include the College of Winterhold and Winstad Manor.
• Tundra Homestead - Not as much as an offender as Myrwatch. The Homestead is close to a major city and is accessible from a main road, and is actually aesthetically pleasing. However, there is slightly too much clutter in the main room which, again, causes physics freak-outs and random items fall off tables and desks, or even fly across the room. Vanilla alternatives to the Homestead include Breezehome and Lakeview Manor.

Forgotten Seasons

Oh, boy, you know something is bad when it requires its own separate section!

• The Dwarven Horse - I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. After one reassembles the horse, the static torso in the ground unceremoniously fades into non-existence and the actual horse fades into existence somewhere behind you. Whilst the body of the horse is quite nice, with visible gears inside it moving about and spinning (very nice touch), its head looks incredibly stupid and poorly modelled compared to the intricate designs seen in ESO. And when you finally hop onto your reward and ride into the sunset, you notice that it makes the sounds and movements of any normal horse one can obtain in the base game. No unique sounds or stiff, robotic animations you'd expect from a stiff, metal, Dwemer construct? Very disappointing.
• Runoff Caverns - This has got to be the most roughest, unbalanced, poorly designed "official" dungeon I have ever played in Skyrim.

Boring, unimaginative corridors, even for a Dwemer ruin.

Several misplaced assets, resulting in clipping environments and seeing into the void outside of the level.

Completely unbalanced, with the first quarter of the dungeon being relatively fair, then cranking up the difficulty manyfold in the Spring section and boss fight resulting in unexpectedly getting one-hit-killed about a dozen times.

The very many chests in the dungeon were filled with pricey, powerful loot, making it a breeze to get rich quick without any effort.

A petty niggle of mine, I will admit, but using the unique Blackreach orb asset copy-pasted in the Summer section really makes the original one seem less mysterious and thought-provoking.

The Summer section itself looked incredibly generic, with everything haphazardly placed, it didn't look like something that would be built by the Dwemer or would ever appear in an Elder Scrolls game officially in any capacity; it felt like baby's first puzzle dungeon design (also they forgot to add the Summer visage alongside the ones of the other seasons, lol).

The giant pools in the Winter section also felt like something the Dwemer never would have built. Both this section and the Summer section were completely immersion breaking.

The final boss's room was a generic cube-shaped boss arena, although I do appreciate the multi-phase boss fight, even if the final phase was unfairly OP.

• Meta - The lead developer of this Creation was Trainwiz, known for his Wheels of Lull mod. I have not played it myself, but I have heard many good things about it, even to the point of Bethesda interviewing him. I, however, had the misfortune of having a short conversation with him many years ago discussing his Pelinal companion mod for Skyrim. He proceeded to call me stupid because I believed Michael Kirkbride's unofficial works, including C0DA, (and therefore Trainwiz's interpretations and additions to Pelinal in his respective mod) were non-canon. So I may be somewhat biased against this modder, but after hearing how good his Wheels mod is and then playing this frankly terrible Creation has me thinking that maybe his other works may be entirely overrated, and how someone so incredibly arrogant about what he perceives and his modding skills managed to put out an official work on behalf of Bethesda is beyond me.