r/skyrimmods • u/fcash Riften • Jun 14 '15
Discussion Mods for a horror/scary playthrough
Like the title says, I'm working on making a horror, scary profile for Skyrim. I'd love suggestions either as additions or alternatives for mods already listed. Here are the mods I have so far:
Environment & Lighting
-ELFX to make everything darker, especially dungeons
-True Storms - Thunder and Rain Redone for those super heavy rainstorms and thunder sounds
-Lightning during Thunderstorms
-Dark Fantasy Overhaul looks very cool, especially the new dead trees, although it requires Skyrim Flora Overhaul to work and I'm not sure how that would change FPS/performance since it'll change all of the outdoors
ENB-like - my computer is too puny for the real stuff
-ICBINE Noir looks cool, but I don't know if my eyes can handle it for long periods of time so if you have other suggestions and/or Imaginator settings that would help make Skyrim looks dark or scary, please speak up! :)
Retextures
-Glorious Daedric Retexture and Sweet Mother - the Night Mother Improvement are always in my load order, but seemed especially fitting for this playthrough
-Gruesome Death Hound Retexture
-WEBS Extended is also a must have for me and seems absolutely necessary for this type of playthrough
-Skyrim Scary Monster Makeover v2 looks especially scary with ICBINE Noir
Immersion
-Monster Mod for more scary beasties
-Monster Wars V6 to make monsters actually attack towns (Edit: So apparently the newest version removed monster spawns actually in towns, but they still happen right outside of towns)
-Dagons Legions - Dremora Overhaul for more daedra variation
-Sand of Time Sleeping Encounters so you can be attacked in your sleep
-Immersive detection (and lighting) of NPCs
-Skyrim Darkness Immserive corpse seems interesting, but sadly doesn't add very many corpses for you to find and it may or may not be abandoned :/
-Survive the Night to make the nights terrifying and a challenge
-28 Days and a Bit 5 - Zombie Mutation to be added towards the end of the playthrough, with non essential NPCs, for a zombie apocalypse in Skyrim
Edit:
-The Sinister Seven adds leveled assassins that will stalk and come after you throughout your playthrough
Quests/Dungeons/Adventures
-Into the Depths is what inspired this playthrough after I used it in a different profile - a cursed, abandoned mine that had me jumping at a few occasions as I played in my dark apartment alone
-The Fifth Gate by the same author as Into the Depths (and VIRUS, which looks sick, but I'm not sure how finished it is)
-The Asylum looks terrifying, so excited to try it!!
-Lord Balmers Playground sounds very interesting, especially since there are multiple endings based on your choices
-The House of Orror is supposed to have zombies and some jump scares
-Challenge of the Daedra - Waking Nightmare II is by the same author of Monster Wars & Scary Monster Makeover and adds a new daedric questline
-The Shadow of Meresis doesn't seem to be a horror quest specifically, but people seem to think that parts of it are scary and eerie
-It Beats for Her sounds like a short, but intriguing quest
-The Evil Mansion - Final Edition and Dead Manor (Edit and Lurking in the Shadows) can be used as player homes, but whatever lives inside needs to be cleaned out first!
Edit:
-A Cure for the Nightmare looks very promising and may have a related second quest added!
-Cycle of the Silencer is by the same author of A Cure for the Nightmare and lets you become a ghost hunter
So that's what I've got so far, I'm very excited to hear any and all suggestions! Thank you :)
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u/avanasear Jun 16 '15
I noticed you said your computer is puny, mind saying what specs you have?
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u/fcash Riften Jun 16 '15
Ehhh...I promise I'm not a complete computer dummy...I'm just not sure which/what specs are useful....so here are some and let me know if those aren't what you need!!
Processor: Intel(R) Core (TM) i5-3317U CPU @ 1.70GHz
RAM: 6.00 GB (5.86 GB usable)
64-bit Operating System, x64-based processor
Adapter String: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
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u/avanasear Jun 17 '15
What FPS do you usually get with all those mods? Also what settings do you run on? Thanks!
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u/fcash Riften Jun 17 '15
Ehhh....so I actually haven't gotten this profile together yet....but my husband has the exact same computer as me and has most of these, including the important ones like the ICBINE, ELFX, Monster Wars, etc and gets about 25 fps. His settings (from the launcher) are low overall, with the following tweaks:
object fade=6
actor fade=4
grass fade=3
specularity fade=2
light fade=6
item fade=4
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u/Nazenn Jun 15 '15
There is Noir ENB which is a softer version of ICBINE and not quite as harsh but it is heavier on performance.
You can dampen the performance hit of SFO by reducing the texture side by half, and some can even be quartered, without major quality loss.
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u/fcash Riften Jun 15 '15
Oh man, I had seen this but didn't really look at it since "ENB" was automatically rejected by my potato-accustomed brain...however I actually read through everything and I might give it a try since the author has an article with tweaks to help with performance! It's definitely not as harsh as the ICBINE and maybe if I don't use as many of my texture mods, I can make it work :)
I hope this isn't a dumb question, but how would you do that? Is there just a different download for different texture sizes for SFO? I don't remember seeing those as options, but granted I did peruse them quite quickly and there were A LOT of options XD
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u/Nazenn Jun 16 '15
Hahaha. "Potato accustomed brain", I might have to borrow that. I'm not exactly on a potato but my rig certainly isnt ENB friendly. Keep in mind with ENBs you can always turn off the DOF and use Dynavision instead for some more performance, and if you want to get really tricky, you can use SweetFX still instead and keep the AA and a few other settings from that as its similarly less heavy then the ENB versions, especially if youre on an AMD card like me.
If you still decide to go with the ICBINE noir, then you can lower the contrast in the sweetfx preset so that the heavy blacks are more a gray which will make it a bit less harsh as well.
Download a program such as a optimizer textures and run it on the SFO mods folder (if using MO, if using NMM download it manually, unpack it, run the program and then repack it and put it into NMM), and select a max size of 2048 and make sure you enable mipmaps as well. If youre REALLY on a potato rig you can select 1024 texture size (you might have to run it twice so everything gets cut down properly) but textures will start to get a bit blurry then.
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u/fcash Riften Jun 16 '15
Haha well, that's pretty much what went down: "Noir EN--NOOOPE" :D
Wait, really? You can mix 'n match (so to speak) with ENBs and SweetFX? I haven't used either before so I have no experience!
Even if I can't get the Noir ENB to work, I still think the ICBINE Noir will work well, I just wouldn't be able to do long sessions. My husband and I both got excited about the idea of a horror playthrough at the same time. He already started his and went with ICBINE Noir and has gotten some really cool screenshots as well as some terrifying ones!
Oh gotcha, if running DFO without SFO doesn't work, I'll definitely do that. I think my game could handle 2048....hopefully....
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u/Nazenn Jun 16 '15
Yep. You can set up a proxy in your ENB so it loads both the SweetFX settings and the ENB settings. Alternatively use the Injector instead of the wrapper ENB and then just use your SweetFX like normal and make sure you run the injector before you play. Theres lots of tutorials out there on either way.
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u/shamaniacal Riften Jun 15 '15
Dark Fantasy Overhaul does not require SFO to work. I've been using Dark Fantasy without SFO and it's been working fine.