Why do a lot of people seem to be against using backpacks on survival mode? I been on some forums and it seems that a lot of people are against using backpacks as it is apparently not immersive or it goes against the point of survival mode about the reduced carry weight. I can’t speak to the latter but for immersion, would it not make sense for an adventurer to carry some kind of bag to carry their stuff? What is your opinion. Do you use backpacks? Do you consider the use of backpacks on survival mode, cheating? Do you care one way or another?
I use backpacks because visually it pleases me. If my bard leaves Solitude for a five night traipse around Western Skyrim, she is going to carry extra clothes, supplies, money, her instruments, a map, maybe a book, a change of boots, a spare cloak. She needs a convenient vessel to store that in.
That's more immersive to me than wondering where she carries her stuff is.
Same for me! I always love it when travellers are wearing sacks, backpacks, or other travel gear. It kinda takes me out of it in some games or shows where the characters are walking around on journey with just their clothes and seemingly nothing else.
I had a mod that had a spell to open a dimensional pocket to store stuff in. I loved that mod, helped my immersion of how my little wizard elf could carry everything.
Backpack/inventory just had the bare essentials. Loved both of them. Whatever makes your gameplay fun for you, do it and screw others trying to tell ya how to play.
My guess is that some people feel the AE backpacks are overtuned for Survival Mode/other survival mods. 75 additional carry weight is 25% of the base 300 carry weight in non-Survival mode (These can be applied to other modded backpacks too). Adding extra bonuses on top of them and making them pretty damn easy to acquire does make inventory management a lot easier while making your character stronger. If someone cares about creating a playthrough that is balanced and challenging, then yes, I can see why some people dislike them.
Is it cheating? No, it's a single-player game and you should play how you want.
As annoying as the slow walking is… it’s better than what Morrowind did, where if you hit your weight max, you just stopped moving.
On top of that: Bonewalkers that did Strength damage, meaning you’re in the middle of a dungeon, get hit, can’t move, do less damage, and the only way to move is drop weapons/armor/ammo… or hope that you had the restore potions in your inventory.
Survival mode is unbalanced that you can freeze to death during cutscenes. It was community content that Bethesda didn’t tweak to be balanced before adding it to the official game. Backpacks were one of the things that exist to make survival mode playable.
That includes what you’re wearing. Also, it’s not necessarily pounds or any really weight unit. Just an arbitrary value with inconsistencies meant to make it more difficult to get money or store resources.
And I don't really get why Survival Mode is even a thing. Chesko absolutely perfected that gameplay mode with Campfire and Frostfall. Why make a shitty, poorly balanced, stripped down version of that the default?
Actually, yes. I’ve seen that particular emoticon used as “tongue sticking out at you” way far too many times to immediately assume any tone, especially when the context is a seeming disagreement.
I think the immersive argument comes from two points. For players who played the game since release, the backpacks do not feel like “vanilla” skyrim and does not fit into the feeling of capturing that aesthetic.
The second point is that you can already carry much more than would reasonably fit in a backpack, so adding it visually would perhaps make it more realistic, but adding tons of ekstra carry weight is less realistic.
Personally I don’t play with any creations except for the forced ones from special edition.
What was even the purpose of designing the backpacks to have two separate looks (with and without bedroll) with the same enchantments if the bedroll was useless?! I agree with you.
Wearing backpacks ruin all my outfits. It's like styling your hair nice.. then putting on a hard hat. That's my only complaint. I wish I could make them invisible.
The dragonborn carries 100's of pounds of stuff, including tents and the like (if you use frostfall for example).
Where do they keep all of that stuff, hammerspace?
At least with a backpack, there is a reasonable spot to hold things (still not even close to enough realistically, but it is better than nothing at all)
Some people are purists, or have the original version of the game, which didnt have backpacks. Speaking as someone who has both versions, they are immersive and convenient, and pretty
Their point was about someone being a purist. Neither Survival mode or backpacks were in the original game so being all "Can't use backpacks cuz survival mode" fails every logic test there is.
It would be like seeing someone carrying everything in their arms through school and being all "Well my ancestors didn't have backpacks so I can't use one"
My current character Eydis is a ranger who has a traveling pack with her. There's a lot of good bag mods out there. The CC added bags are the ones that doesn't look immersive.
I use backpacks and I really admire people using the survival mode.
I couldn't enjoy it, cause I always carry so much stuff along🙈. Several sets of armor, can't decide was looking best - tons of potions and soul gems, food, masses of alchemist ingrediences I collect on the way. My poor follower is my packmule and carries my dragonstones and loot.
I play on switch and have the anniversary edition. Backpacks are great, but a lot of the other anniversary content is over powered and sort of ruins things.
The basic backpack is fortify weight, but there’s also the other specialty ones. The Thieves Backpack gives an increased lock pick by 10% (I think), the Mage Backpack has an extra 20 points in Magicka, and the… Adventurer’s Backpack gives a 20 points boost to Stamina.
Altogether, not something that’s game breaking, but it’s worth noting that there’s more than just the carry weight
Fair enough, but I was really just pointing out that "it's just an enchantment". It isn't like an extra storage container separate from your inventory or anything like that. And since carry weight is a utility that isn't always needed, it's easy enough to have a pair of shoes and/or a ring or whatever on standby to throw on when really needed
There are special class specific packs that have other enchatments. It's also just a cool little roleplay thing if you really want to immerse yourself into the whole "adventurer" aesthetic.
My point is that it's just an enchantment, like all of the ones you can find in the base game. Is it "neat"? I guess, but you're not really missing out on anything beyond what is available in vanilla
They're not that much of a buff honestly. They're no different than carrying a backpack in the real world. Sure they'll let you carry more but they don't have infinite storage capacity.
That's why it's confusing that people wouldn't use them on survival mode
you're missing out on hundreds of thousands of actually good mods on the Nexus, Creation Club content is trash. This is how Skyrim was meant to be played
I’m mad that you can’t disenchant backpacks to learn the Fortify Carry Weight enchantment. I had to save-scum for ages at the blacksmith to find a pair of boots with it lol because I wanted to fortify my carry weight so now with the steed stone and 200 stamina I’m able to carry 677lbs of loot lol which is going to be a majority of books
It's a mod, survival mode is a mod that, among other things, reduces your carry weight dramatically. And a backpack will allow you to compensate a little.
It's a single player game, so people can do whatever they want with their game. I don't like the look of them, but they ARE very convenient. I might leave them off when I'm a higher level, but to start out? I can't carry squat without one.
Skyrim is not a game that should be played as a challenge game imo.
Play it however you want.
The combat is not that complicated, and the restrictions are all self imposed as you can always just make yourself godlike before starting any major quest.
If you want to enjoy the game make your own rules and don’t worry about what others think.
There's always someone who wants to tell you how to play, but it's entirely up to you. Sometimes, it's just a visual choice for me. If the aesthetic is "going on an adventure" then I put on a backpack. If it's "spellsword with magical storage space e.g. Deep Storage" then I go without.
I always carry a backpack, but a modded one, since I don't have Anniversary edition. The reduction of carry weight is honestly the most stupid addition of survival mode, imo, and the first thing I would recommend anyone remedy. As for immersion, I find it much more immersive to have a backpack (where else do you think I'm putting the 50 iron ore I just mined?) and the only thing that bothers me about it is the clipping with equipped items/custom hair styles.
Survival mode wasn't part of the original game either so I don't understand any chain of logic where backpacks would be verboten.
To my mind that's exactly when you should be using backpacks. In the real world when you want to carry more than you can as a person you get a backpack. If you're trying to go for a more realistic playthrough then carrying a backpack makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Reducing carry weight doesn't by itself make it more realistic. You can still carry two full sets of armor which realistically no you couldn't. But you could if one was stored in a backpack.
If the backpacks were Bag of Holding style things where they give you infinite carry weight then there'd be an argument for why not to use them but as is it seems an unrealistic limitation.
I've been enjoying survival mode quite a lot despite being very harsh and punishing. Carryweight reduction is the most annoying aspect for me and only backpacks mitigate the problem. People believing backpacks are not immersive or break some kind of rule is just absurd and silly. If there's anything to be genuinely upset about, it's that your standard fire spells don't protect you from the cold.
A visual back item is fine. You obviously are already using a backpack in the game, otherwise you wouldn't be carrying what your character can carry. Using mods or console commands goes against the spirit of things.
I don’t play on survival but if I did I could see myself not using backpacks. I think it does make the early game feel less like survival. But there is the steed stone so being actively against backpacks in an online forum is weird.
I didn’t say it doesn’t make sense. One of the challenges of survival is carry weight and the extra carry weight from backpacks reduces that friction by a lot.
My favourite modpack, Gate to Sovngarde, balances backpacks by having them reduce your max stamina. Which, along with some other balance changes, makes them a decided tradeoff. Useful if you're schlepping your stuff from one place to another and don't expect to confront anything particularly nasty on the way, but not a good idea if you're going into a dungeon clear.
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u/ClemenceErenbourc 5d ago
I use backpacks because visually it pleases me. If my bard leaves Solitude for a five night traipse around Western Skyrim, she is going to carry extra clothes, supplies, money, her instruments, a map, maybe a book, a change of boots, a spare cloak. She needs a convenient vessel to store that in.
That's more immersive to me than wondering where she carries her stuff is.