Addon Recommendations

Below are the official recommendations for NGVO.

Major Gameplay Overhauls:

  • Requiem: mutually exclusive with SimonRim/EnaiRim
  • EnaiRim: modular overhauls for perks, magic, faith, etc - more power fantasy
  • SimonRim: modular overhauls for perks, magic, faith, etc - more vanilla plus

Quest Addons/Immersion/Expansions:

  • Legacy of the Dragonborn: LOTD will forever change how you play Skyrim. Not just a display mod, not just a quest mod, not just a new guild mod, but a complete foundational flagship mod to build an entire load order around. This DLC expansion sized mod adds hundreds of new items, dozens of new quests and hundreds of extra hours of play.

  • The Forgotten City: The Forgotten City is the first mod in history to win a national Writers’ Guild award for its script. It is a critically acclaimed expansion mod offering a unique 6 - 8 hour experience: a murder mystery investigation set in an ancient underground city. You’ll need to solve it using your wits, and the ability to travel through time…

  • HaemProjects: Creators behind popular quest mods like Project AHO & Carved Brink as well as player homes and followers. Checkout their website here

  • Jayserpa: A big fan of immersion, realism and bringing more life into your characters. Check out their mods if you’re into that sort of thing!

  • VICN: Mod author behind several DLC sized quest mods best known for Vigilant.

  • GiraPomba: Nothing much to say about me, just a guy that loves to play Skyrim and Fallout games. Mod author with several great animation mods

  • wSkeever: A gold mine of fixes, quests and other immersion mods to improve your game.

  • shazdeh: LoreRim Co-Creator…nuff said

  • nimwraith: Multiple small self contained quest mods. These mods include great writing for interesting characters, brilliant voice acting and often multiple choices leaning into the RPG aspects of the game.

  • runesentinel: Well made quest mods built around Elder Scrolls lore as well as new enemy types with a more unique look.

World Addons:

  • snozz: Overhauls a some of the more forgotten locations found throughout Skyrim.

  • JPSteel: Most of their work focuses on visuals, mainly architecture. I’m extremely fond of medieval and scandinavian styles, which I try to emulate through the models I create. Cities of the North & Northern Roads being the main mods for world addons. Be sure to checkout their other mods as well.

  • JK: Overhauls all the cities with JK’s Skyrim adding some much needed details to make them feel more lived in. Additionally, there are mods for interiors like stores, factions, temples, palaces etc and overhauls to exteriors of cities.

  • Archinatic: Mod Author behind the Great Cities series on Skyrim Special Edition. The great cities overhauls the smaller towns and cities found throughout Skyrim. From hold capitals like Winterhold to small towns like Shor’s Stone.

  • gutmaw: The Snazzy series overhauls interiors and clutter making them feel more lived in. Checkout gutmaw’s profile for improved player homes.

Animations/MCO:

  • maxsu: Developer behind several comabt mods. Checkout their GitHub profile.

  • skyhorizons: Ports a lot of maxsu’s stuff.

  • Smooth: Has a lot of animation mods for different weapons.

  • MathieuTheDunmer: Movesets for different weapon styles (sword shield, dual wield, one handed etc) as well as unique animation for races.

  • VeroLevi: Multiple animation mods for both combat and non-combat (idle, walk/run, sneak etc).

  • krembrule: Animations for creatures as well as movesets.

  • Very MingMing: Best known for movessets which are applied to races working on both the player and NPCs.

Adding New Grass (Giant FPS boost if you use performance grass like Skoglendi):

  1. Remove all the mods in the “Grass” Section of MO2 (I highly recommend keeping Cathedral - 3d Solstheim Grass though, if you keep it you can also skip Step 4)
  2. Go into NGVO - xEdit Output and remove “NGVO - Grass Tweaks & Bounds”
  3. Add whatever grass mod you want (such as Skoglendi) and put it in the grass section of MO2 on the left pane and put it in the Trees, Grass & Landscape section of MO2 on the right pane
  4. (If you didn’t keep Cathedral - 3d Solstheim Grass) Disable all plugins in the right side that come after NGVO - Synthesis Patch and re-run Synthesis
  5. Re-run Parallaxgen!!
  6. Re-do your grass cache per the steps above (if you don’t want to do this, you can simply disable Grass Cache Helper NG and NGVO - Grass Cache)

You should always check and final conflicts in xEdit before finalizing ParallaxGen and LODs

Adding New Trees (Giant FPS boost if you swap Nature of the Wild Lands to something like Happy Little Trees):

  1. Remove all of the Nature of the Wild Lands and related mods from the “Trees” section of MO2 on the left pane
  2. Add whichever tree mod you want to the same pane. Make sure to grab any Dyndolod LOD addons for your new tree mod. You can usually find these on Nexus.
  3. Move the plugins for the tree mod into the Trees, Grass & Landscape section of MO2 on the right pane. Place any patches after both the tree mod and the mod it’s patching (E.G. if it’s a patch for Lux, place it after Lux.esp)
  4. Re-run Synthesis, Parallaxgen and LODs per the guides above!!

You should always check and final conflicts in xEdit before finalizing ParallaxGen and LODs