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SPOILER INFO
This article tells about one very harmful mod. I consider it a necessary warning, not a spoiler.
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The description of the mod Legendary Main Quest Expansion promises to make the game more interesting by adding challenges to various locations connected with the main quest, beginning as early as in Helgen – "gentle changes at first", as the mod description puts it. I thought this was just what I needed, with the game so boringly easy once your player character has reached a level high enough.
Now, during my mod testing, I couldn't obviously play this mod through. I just switched it on and verified that the game appeared to run as normal. I also checked with TES5Edit to make sure this mod wasn't in significant conflict with any others. As far as I was able to tell, it was technically all right. Meaning, I had (and still have) every reason to believe that the mod contains no bugs or dirty programming.
What I found unacceptably flawed, though, was this mod's intended content.
When I started a new game, greatly excited to go through all the adventures again with a new innocent character, I was mildly appalled very early in the game when I ran up the staircase in the citadel and a dragon was supposed to burst through the wall. It didn't happen. I couldn't imagine why. Which mod could possibly screw up the dragon bursting though the citadel wall in Helgen?? Seriously, I hadn't the faintest idea. I just went through with tcl , a large part of my joy and enthusiasm destroyed by the realization I had chosen a mod configuration that caused a serious bug so early in the game.
When Hadvar suggested we sneak past the bear, I was somewhat surprised to see two bears. I guess it was at that point that I started to suspect this mod. But the trouble came to a head when Hadvar and I were just about to exit Helgen, having successfully passed all the ordeals (and it hadn't been easy). Just in the last corridor before the exit, we were attacked by a sabercat who tore me in pieces.
I tried several times and it was completely hopeless. I went as far as lowering my combat difficulty to Expert which made all the encounters in Helgen pointlessly easy. Even so, the sabercat killed me with one blow. (Level 3, i.e. Health 120.)
After several futile attempts, I had to delete this mod and start my game anew, with my excitement of beginning a new adventure replaced by frustration and bitterness. I'm not allowed to write here what I wish I could do to the mod author, so let me just state that if I found him injured on the roadside, I wouldn't call the emergency number.
Skyrim is most assuredly the kind of game where you are not supposed to have to save and reload several times before you can get through a difficult place. And even by doing that, you simply wouldn't stand a chance to beat that sabercat unless maybe by changing your combat difficulty to Beginner just before the sabercat encounter and then back to Master – which, of course, firstly, requires that you know beforehand about that sabercat, and secondly, destroys the immersion, and, thirdly, borders on cheating.
Most importantly, one is not supposed to be thrown into an Ebony Warrior style boss fight in goddamned Helgen! Helgen is meant for the player to get into the mood. Skyrim is very difficult in the beginning as it is, and far too easy in the end. The author of Legendary Main Quest Expansion has totally failed to realize that.
Let me remind you one more time of the words in the mod description: "gentle changes at first". If the above is what the mod author calls gentle, then what should you expect by the time you're doing Delphine's quest? Five dragons attacking you simultaneously every few hours?
I urge you not to install Legendary Main Quest Expansion because it will make your game unplayable.
