First Things First

I decided to fire up Skyrim again for the first time in several years, but within a few minutes became bored of the same old places, the bleak and drab aesthetic, and the stale combat. I longed for the verdant forests of Cyrodiil and the feeling of being lost in a vast fantasy domain. This time, however, I had the Special Edition on PS4, so I decided to see if some mods might be able to spice things up a bit.
Here's a list of mods I installed:

Graphics:
Enhanced Draw Distance
Lively Graphics Overhaul
Epic Enhanced Console Graohics
ELE Interior Lighting Overhaul
Surreal Lightimg
IA92's Enhanced Aqua Blue Water
More Blood and Gore!

Summary: The world should be a lot more vivid and closer in colour to Cyrodiil, with a slight tinge of the Shivering Isles surreality for good measure. Interiors will be darker and more atmospheric. Draw distance is increased so you can see buildings and landscapes which are very far away, as you would in real life.


Things:
Whiterun: A City Full of Life
New Grass / Green Skyrim
Dense Grass
The Great Cities
Increased Population: Towns & Cities
FOS - Forests of Skyrim
Bridges of Skyrim
Fortified City Exteriors
Magical College of Winterhold
Point The Way
Fallen Trees
Immersive Patrols
Diverse Creatures and Bosses
A bunch of individual city tweaks

Summary: This should make the world look substantially different. Forests will be denser, and there will be grass instead of miles of plain shrubland. Fallen trees will be scattered here and there. Some bridges will look different and more interesting. Towns and cities will have tweaks to make them less stale, and there should be a lot more people in them generally.

Gameplay:
Quick Start - Skip New Game Intro
Hardcore Difficulty: No Milkdrinkers
Phenderix Magic Evolved
Immersive Travelling
Immersive Citizens AI Overhaul
Guard Dialogue Overhaul
Immersive Movement
Better Combat AI
Effective Blocking
Carriage Driver Overhaul
H.A.S.T.E
Rich Merchants of Skyrim

Summary: I intend to play on Legendary mode, and these tweaks mean that instead of enemies doing 3x damage and the player doing 0.25x damage in Legendary mode, we *both* will do 3x damage. Much better and more thrilling! It makes no sense and is very immersion-breaking that hitting someone in the face with an axe repeatedly just chips away slightly at their health in normal Legendary mode. Combined with the changes to AI and the increased effectiveness of blocking, this should make fights tense and cagey encounters, with one or two good hits making the difference between triumph and disaster.


In order to increase my enjoyment of the game, I will play without fast-travel, will have no HUD (that means no compass markers, no crosshairs, no text ever coming up on screen to say what things are or where doors lead, and no health / mana / stamina bars, although I can pause the game if I really need to check those) and will not look at the map unless I really need to (wish there was a mod to disable it on PS4 but there isn't).

Yes, this will make things a lot slower, but I'm not playing for the story. A journey from one side of the map to the other will be an epic and perilous quest. Oh and one of the mods increases the cost of carriages to about 1500, so if I really need to use those I can, but it will be limited.

Time to get started then!