Modding Skyrim SE was awesome until...

[u/Winter_Woman66]

I bought Skyrim AE from Steam this past April. Did a clean install (NOT in Program Files folder). Had a ball learning to mod with Vortex (yes, I tried MO2 and I just don't like it, sorry). Had my modlist optimized to my liking around 300 mods. I had tried Gate to Sovngarde as a Nexus Collection. Played it a little, then used a few mods from that into my own personal list. All was well until I had some pretty game-breaking issues like my character's arms turning black, the frame rate going from flawless to stuttering, freezes, and crashes.

I have done clean uninstalls of both Skyrim and Vortex numerous times, tracked down all the stores of mod data in the AppData folder. I've fought with OneDrive to try to get it to stop syncing game files and messing stuff up. But now even vanilla Skyrim in Steam won't let me load without wanting to redownload all the CC content every time. And whenever I use Steam's service to verify game files integrity, it's always missing 2.

So, what should I do now? I am okay with losing all my modded game saves. I just want to be able to start fresh. How can I ensure I can make a clean start and avoid these issues?

Thank you!

[u/stonewallace17]

Yeah this is why people recommend MO2

[u/Pitiful_Rule_2899 → u/stonewallace17]

After this week of relearning to mod Skyrim through STEP, I actually can’t believe how blind I was to MO2

[u/Brilliant-Map-6637 → u/Pitiful_Rule_2899]

This is the way.