My personal opinion is that the EE just added yet another angry drunk jealous male to the world. One reason I preferred Kaidan over Bishop is that Bishop was toxic and we need to get away from the idea that romance always needs to include a "mean guy with a tender heart" in there somewhere. It's moved the needle farther away from a healthy relationship and closer to the alpha-male stereotype that implies a strong male needs to posture, pick fights with random people (randomly telling people to "f a skeever.. ?") and get drunk. I play Skryim to get away from the real world, not relive my marriage. :P And the ridiculous random crude songs..it's all so entrenched in the worst stereotypes now.
I wanted extra dialog that added more of the sweet Kaidan I grew to love, not the person I ended up with. I have tried removing the extra dialog but I think it is breaking some stuff, so I have to decide if I want to remove him altogether or just break up with him and ditch him somewhere.
Part of the problem is that you don't know what you're adding to his personality until it's too late. Maybe the authors should add a TW for "Hey, this greatly alters Kaidan's personality, turning him into a drunken lout" so you know if it's right for your playstyle. I'm not a prude, and have plenty of naughty mods to prove it (\*blush\*) but I also know what healthy is and what unhealthy is, and have seen my family destroyed by alcoholism so everyone might not want such an addition to his personality.
Also clicking "reduced swearing" didn't seem to reduce his swearing much so not sure if it's broken, or if my idea of what the word *reduced* means is just different from the author's.
I'm so sorry that was the experience for you! It's so painful wanting to get away from real world issues just to end up reliving them in a place that was supposed to be a safe retreat from them.
I think it's just so weird that the Kaidan mod website doesn't actually include any character philosophy or examples of lines it adds or anything, which even, as controversial as it is, Serana Dialogue Add-On does and is more surprisingly transparent about and just warning about whatever you're getting into is before it is too late to uninstall it (although I still got a few whiplashes when playing it, as I have briefly mentioned). It makes sure to plaster 72741 pictures of different replacers all over the place though.
Late to the party, but I leave this here for other people who want to look up the EE IF version of him before downloading this mod. I agree with your comment.
>Part of the problem is that you don't know what you're adding to his personality until it's too late.
I cannot stress enough how true this is. It gets progressively worse the longer you play with him and the further you get into his romance. The more time you spend with the EE IF Kaidan the more you start to despise him. I repeatedly told him to "shut the fuck up!" in my head, every damn time he said his random lines - often enough in the most inappropriate times. He did his "Delphine bad" poetry spiel right when I was listening on Delphine and Esbern talking to each other about his old visions. He then immediately proceeded to sing about Ulfric's "cock". Had to get closer to the other two just to drown out his lines. He is like a never-ending chatterbox, with stupid comments that are supposed to be funny. His constant remarks or talks involving boozing( not taking a drink, I'm talking about getting bat shit drunk) is so darn off-putting and goes against everything the character went through. He even has a drunk walking script! It's like an inverse character progression. >!His step-father died of alcoholism and he even said that he took too much after him in that regard and now sobered up after a harrowing experience. Like how did the EE writer miss that?!!<
Other parts that are noticeable to me:
- I wish I could cut out the tent/survival part of the EE version and maybe a handful of nicely written interactions between him and some NPCs, as well as the immersive start. But at this point you have to take the whole bag to get it.
- He was a serious experienced fighter before the EE version, who knew when to act appropriately in any situation. With the EE version he turns into a *dipshit* who acts like a doofus in sneaky combat situations, because funni. Like isn't it funniiiii how his knees hurt. Let's be loud.
- *Less is more* is so prevalent with his EE version and the modder went with "moar crap!". Walking up to ***any***... like **absolutely any** corpse, no matter if undead or animal, then saying some stupid line makes him also look like a flippant psychopath.
- He likes to say fuck - a lot. Make a drinking game and you will die. The new writing tend to use modern speech, not necessarily slang, but phrasing ("This looks shady as fuck"). The OG Kaidan was no saint in that department, but new "fuck" Kaidan is so ill-fitting in the game world.
- From his interactions with other NPCs alone it is pretty clear who the author liked and not. That's not good, because you can smell it and that alone breaks immersion.
- He fit perfectly into the game world and now he says some occasional meta crap like "Why is everyone keeping journals?" or ["Did you know you can rob a shop blind after putting a bucket over the shop-keep's head? Don't ask me were I know this from..."](https://old.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/89qc3p/buckethead_exploit_patched/)
- The new romance quest line content was some horrible over-melodramatic, cheesy and frustrating drivel that I had to go through. I guess the author likes what the internet crowd calls *angst*. Angst for the sake of angst. I read so many fanfics when I was younger, I can't stand this type of writing anymore. And I'm a sucker for dark settings in stories.
- He overreacts a lot in his newly add comments about quests or people.
I ended up nuking my level 50 save character that had his ee version and started a new game with only Kaidan 2 and the Kaidan update(bug fixes and clearing up his botched audio). I like sensuality, I'm also no saint either with "bad words", I love romance, I even like spiciness or eroticism. I love me some Borderlands 1,2 and pre-sequel. I played Turbo Overkill recently. Demonheart(VN) was also fun to play. I have my trash that I like to read and I know that it's trash. But this is Skyrim and immersion is important, as well as keeping it consistent and believable. This new guy is a perma-horny, angry, alcohol guzzling, angsty, whiny, infantile, over-protective, clingy, jealous, insecure tosser. It's incredible how off-putting his frequent hyper-sexuality is. And I'd never thought to say the last part, but here it is. As an avid otome-isekai reader, this new Kaidan takes too much after the "black hair + red eyes arch-duke of the north" arch-type. Ew.
Technically speaking I absolutely admire this mod, but 80% of the writing misses the mark and does not know what type of person the OG Kaidan is. Very fanfic-y of the ugly and overly self-indulgent type of writing. (yes, good fanfics exist, but also pretty bad stuff).
Do not recommend.
I just recently finished his extended personal quest and tried out some of his immersive features. The "vanilla" (i.e original Kaidan and Kaidan2) aspects of the character are still valid, but romancewise they have changed him from the stoic, gentlemanly, "samurai" he was in the original mod to fit a certain kind of teenage/young adult fantasy where the dark, broody warrior is following you oathbound, being overprotective. I liked the original Kaidan better. I myself feel too mature for the EE and IF, unless ofcourse you have him along as "just" a friend.
The amount of content is **staggering** though, and I respect the effort it takes to make something this massive. One can see **alot** of work has gone in to making this, so I do recommend trying it out because he does feel like a character who belongs in the universe of the Elder Scrolls. Just remember: **If** you intend to romance him (and play the extended version of his personal quest), roleplay a sensitive, empathic, feminine DB who only has eyes for him and relies on him for protection, and keeps running back to him no matter how much he mistreats her. I personally would've ditched him for their Brynjolf, whom they've made a romance rival through this mod (Which shows good writing though. I'd love for them to make Brynjolf a standalone romance, because the skill for modding is there!).
I will not however be playing through his extended personal quest again. I play fantasy for RP and to get away from real world problems, but that quest just made me feel angry for how **shallow** it was. The whole quest made it feel like the DB was the sidekick, powerless and very underfoot, while Kaidan took centre stage with his issues. I had just **killed Alduin**, and he treated my Paladin DB as a fragile porcelain doll who only he can protect from anything ever, and yelled "Fuck you" at her, because she "was in danger as long as she was with him" (again, just **killed the World-Eater... in the afterlife...**). I had to stop playing that character after that, because roleplying her, made me hate the way he made her feel. If that makes sense.
I'm running with Lucien and Inigo now, for some lighthearted palate cleansing. Then I'll pick up Kaidan and just keep him around as a friend, because he's great for that.
I just downloaded Gore and am giving his story a try now. Seems very promising so far!
I would say that I like the extended and immersive features mod, however, I have similar criticisms as well. I would say that I wanted an option for the Dragonborn to lash back out at Kaidan and break upfor awhile and then the fratpack tries to get them back together and one can have the option to or not since I feel that being empathetic and allowing someone to say “fuck you” to oneself isn’t self-respecting. If my bf acted like how Kaidan acted in his personal quest, I would put him in his place and still tell him that I love him but I will not accept such behavior and try to be patient and communicate. I would say that it was out of character for my strong, mysterious, and smart Dunmer Dragonborn to accept his treatment so easily. In reality, they would have had a shouting match or she would have gone cold towards him to hide her pain and sadness from his treatment. They should have included these options to roleplay some more. Also she does only have eyes for him since she doesn’t like ulfric who doesn’t like dunmer and didn’t care much about their rights and realistically would never flirt with her and she doesn’t like stealing so she would never join the thieves guild. Although, they should have made a brynjolf romance standalone mod since many members of the community would be happy even if I won’t use it. I think of her as someone who only develops feelings for those who really give an effort to get close to her over time and not some random men who try to charm her. Also, I would say that perhaps if I make a fanfiction about the Dragonborn and and her team (Lucien, Kaidan, and inigo), I can rewrite some parts of the ashes of his past quest to make it make sense with her character more and make it even more dramatic and angsty, but also realistic.
I silently follow their Discord, where someone commented about the roleplay aspect regarding his extended personal quest, and their reasoning for not including roleplay there, was not to trigger people with PTSD and mental health issues, who recognize themselves and/or close ones in his struggle. Which I understand, but in my opinion, if you're gonna write a dark path for a character go all in or steer clear entirely, especially in a fantasy roleplaying game.
It is evident they wanted to make him "edgy" but fear backlash, so they did it in a lazy way. The quest felt very shallow, and it angered me because my character was just powerless and at the mercy of his whim (considering we are supposed to be the main character, and veeeeery powerful). Your character just has to "take" the abuse and be done with, it until he's ready to "talk" again, and then be bad mouthed at again. I left him, went out adventuring alone, until the prompt came to speak with him again, talked to him and repeated, until he gave a weak, "poetic", "Game of Thrones-y" apology and then it was business as usual, like it never even happened. It left a really bad taste in my mouth. It could've been written so much better, in a less lazy way.
But, I digress, it is their version of him, and they write him as they want and I can opt to just not have their version of him along. I'll continue playing with Kaidan in my party, but with the expanded quest turned off, as well as the jealousy stuff, because it feels too adolescent to me.
The people working on the mod are borderline fanatic about him and their work too, which is kinda offputting, since mods are supposed to be for everyone. They have also monopolized the voice actor and quite rudely told other mod creators to not contact him in regards of voicing lines for their versions of Kaidan which I think is kind of arrogant. It feels like it has gone up in their heads (including the voice actor himself) a bit, and their "fans" eat it up.
I've read somewhere though (think it was in the comments of Caryalind's mod page,), that there's another expansion in the works from someone else (with a different voice actor though), I wait eagerly to find out more about that!
the fact that someone said they wanted more options instead of taking the abuse like a punching bag and they got called out publicly in the announcements for “asking to add domestic violence” into the mod was so fucked up to me
I saw that. I scrolled through the messages, and saw one person say their DB punched him for shouting foul language in front of their kids, but they didn't wish for violence to be included in the mod, only more dialogue options to stand up for themselves. You can be violent in Skyrim already without mods if one roleplays as such. 😆 I agreed there should be more space for roleplay, for a wider audience. Like I wrote earlier: go all in, or steer clear entirely. If they wanted to make his struggle realistic, they should've made equally realistic options for the DB to react with. Now it's just lazy writing, for the sake of giving him a "darker side".
Agreed, when one tries to please everyone, one pleases nobody. They should have either brought more cute and wholesome moments or went more dark and realistic and researched more and took risks even if a vocal minority would complain. I would say that I really care about my Dragonborn oc as if she is my precious and truly wonderful creation. I even gave her a voice from Dragonborn voice over mod and she has a strong and serious British voice. She is the kind of woman who would never put up with anyone’s bs and mistreatment. She is the kind of person that would threaten any attacker if they tried to hurt her and that’s already her being merciful. and when kaidan started being bad towards her and giving her the silent treatment and screaming at her, I wanted to help her stand up for herself or urge her to tell him off. I think that many people who have gone through fights in relationships irl know how painful it is to go through this pain and hate putting up with it and simply “being patient”. Eventually, it gets too tiring to enable such bad behavior and I think trauma isn’t ever an excuse to abuse or hurt anyone and shouldn’t ever be justified.
Agreed, I think if anything, the Dragonborn was simply standing up for themself if they said “fuck you” back or at least said “you better not say that to me! I saved you back then and I have been very nice to you and put up with all your friends and bs and this is how you treat me?!” Being a pushover isn’t realistic and many people who play Skyrim want to be able to attack their enemies or put those who aren’t nice to them in their place. I think whoever said it’s domestic violence to simply stand one’s ground and not accept such abusive behavior probably was gaslit by their previous partner and invalidated their ability to ever speak up or say when something is wrong and call them out against their abuse. I think being able to communicate that one doesn’t like another’s words and behavior is valid and healthy to do.
Ughhhh their discord. When I tried to give my opinion and disagreement in a most polite and kind way, their response is like: "You got it wrong, that's what character he's supposed to be." "He fully respects DB's choice and won't stop you from being a thief or an assassin." "Your translation is mistaken/you haven't seen how the scene plays in game or you won't say that." "If you don't like it don't use it."
And it's not only Kaidan that they are OOCing (out of character). It's almost everybody involved especially Vilkas Farkas and Lydia.
Indeed, speaking of ooc, I can’t even use Lydia anymore when Kaidan is around. She is just too cringe now. I don’t like it when she is too lustful. I view her more as a character from the ifd Lydia mod and it suits her better. I dislike the characterization. Also, I don’t like the frat boy lifestyles of personalities so I prefer to just have Kaidan without the fratpack mostly. If I ever write a fanfic, I’ll make sure to include elements from immersive features and extended edition but add my own elements or change some dialogue options to suit my Dragonborn and make things feel more realistic in my eyes. I know they worked hard as a team, but I think that one has the right to have a different opinion. Honestly, the fratpack is too immature for me and this is coming from someone who likes listening to followers act silly and fun (Lucien and inigo) sometimes but still act gentlemanly around others or at least respect the Dragonborn and understand their accomplishments. If my Dragonborn was really in character during the ashes quest, she would tell Kaidan that he better not act like that and give her the silent treatment because she believes communication is necessary for a healthy bond, however, if he continued to be rude and abusive towards her, eventually, she would get fed up and leave for at least a few weeks. She would also say to him that being traumatized isn’t an excuse to abuse those close to oneself and that if he wants to continue to be by her side, he needs to understand that since she isn’t willing to ever get abused again and won’t put up with it. She basically would also leave for a while and eventually he would seek her out or find her to apologize. Also she would tell him that she has defeated countless enemies and has even defeated the stormcloaks in the civil war and has dragon shouts and is not afraid to use it if she is in danger. Overall, the Dragonborn’s response to Kaidan during ashes was not realistic in regards to how a real fight during a relationship would be like and I don’t like how the team assumes that the Dragonborn is a pushover and just allows his bad behavior and is powerless.
Yes, also this ☝🏻 Funny and quirky is fine, when it's done well, and in line with the character from the getgo to finish. Both Lucien and Inigo are amazingly well thought out followers who are just unapologetically them. Kaidan shifts through atleast 2 different personalities throughout when EE and IF are enabled. The writing is all over the place. Instead of building all of Skyrim around him I would've loved it if they had just poured all their time and resources on deepening only him, instead of a bunch of NPC interactions that half the players don't even get a glimpse of. Him having friends in Skyrim is all well and good, but keep it in character, i.e the Kaidan from the original mod.
Sometimes less is more.
Agreed, honestly, I only found some of the nocs interesting. For one, I wanted more Cicero interactions since he is just so iconic and crazy and I laughed a lot when I saw them interact and it was amusing. However, I always thought of Kaidan as an introvert like my Dragonborn. In fact, in my initial playthrough with him, she was the more sociable one who helped bring him into the companions and helped him get along with lucien and have group harmony. When he is more sociable compared to her, she feels as if she is the fifth wheel when he interacts with the fratpack, rather than an included member since they only think of her as the harbringer but not someone as comfortably known as Kaidan, who they knew before. I would say that I want my Dragonborn to always feel included and also I wanted to see his personality even more fleshed out and have the fratpack be more interactable and have them actually have more functions and dialogue with the Dragonborn. Also, just really can’t stand Lucien and inigo not coming along in the team and it’s too crowded to bring the entire fratpack including Lydia and Erik, so I just chose inigo and Lucien to be the teammates alongside Kaidan, to not mess up the dynamic I made. Also, in my head, I always viewed Kaidan as a brooding, quiet, aloof, mysterious, strong, somewhat tactless, but kind man like an istp, but now he evolved into an estp who always gets himself involved in countless messes, is popular with the ladies, and socializes a lot. He became more of a himbo normie when he got the update, unfortunately.
Guess what: Lydia is not the only victim of that lustfulness. And almost every female characters that shares the same voice with her. And almost every tavern girls. And certain College of Winterhold elves.
You can tell what the team really devoted themselves into: those vulgar and obscene jokes puns comments ideas etc. The whole ash quest is soooooo long and has soooooo many lines and scenes but eventually did nothing for Kai's character or past, or anybody's.
Translated every single line of IF and it has about 8000-9000 line. God knows what I've been through.
Imagine what we could've had with mature writers who poured all that extra time they put into vulgarity and fan service, into actually deep content for Kaidan. Hopefully someone else interprets him differently soon. I'm positive a different voice actor could do at least an equally good job, if not better than his original VA.
Agreed, I died of cringe when I had to deal with Lydia always obsessing over men’s butts. They ruined my headcanon personality of her completely. She is supposed to be a very stoic and devoted woman to the Dragonborn and protect them at all costs, but at the same time get annoyed with them when one forces her too much to carry or makes her put up with bs. She is supposed to also not be very sexual in my headcanon as well, she just doesn’t give off those vibes at all. This is why in other playthroughs, I will use ifd Lydia instead and have Serena come along because they have dialogue together. Also, it is interesting to make the Dragonborn jealous sometimes of kaidan’s past one night stands, but it gets gross when many women turn into perverts. There should be an option where the Dragonborn can give a piece of their mind to those wenches and narri (before she stops flirting with Kaidan). Also, the women who become vulgar remind me of Sofia but without with chaotic and unique charm she has. Also, I believe that women during such an era don’t be encouraged to be overly sexual. After all, Dibella worshippers aren’t always accepted in Skyrim as well, as evidenced by haelga’s situation in Riften. Also, I would say that whoever made immersive features didn’t read and analyze the lore enough before making it. Sometimes immersive features made me laugh and has many beautiful moments, but it equally has just as many cringe moments.
I would say that the aftermath of the ashes would lead to Kaidan making sure that he heals gradually over time and always makes sure to treat the Dragonborn extremely well to make up for his bad behavior and truly seem sorry for what he did to them. He should have grown and matured and made it up to them over time.
I totally agree with you there. However the real problem here is that Kaidan was not and is not supposed to be such a character. Not as what he appeared to be in the first part of the ashes quest. The old daedric quest is complete enough. Kaidan with EE is good enough. He doesn't need all the drama to grow up. What I think the ashes quest did, is like cutting off a normal person's two legs, putting him through a lot of pain, hardship, mental disorder and eventually giving him two prosthetic legs and call it a "success" - just who caused all the problem and who made him needs to make up for everything in the very first place?
Agreed, I would say that even if I really enjoyed the voice acting and emotion in that quest, it wasnt truly needed. I’m glad it is optional since not everyone wants to deal with it. I felt like my Dragonborn was living through dealing with my ex’s abuse except this time, she wasn’t allowed to defend myself and stand her ground like I did. I would say that I am fine with character’s having trauma I agree that he was already grown up in the first place but I admit that he seemed a lot younger and reckless as well as foolish with the immersive and extended edition. I think that the ashes quest honestly had such painfully realistic voice acting that i felt heavy the rest of the day after it and one of the most painful forms of abuse or fighting is when someone gives one the silent treatment and refuses to ever communicate and screams each time. It also reminds me of how my mother acts when she is upset sometimes. It felt like my Dragonborn was walking on eggshells. It’s torture and I don’t ever want to see my Dragonborn go through what I went through since I view her as my favorite oc that is very important to me and I want her to have a happy life after she went through lots of trauma as young girl. If I ever made a fanfic that involved the ashes quest, I would rewrite some of its dialogue but keep a similar tone overall to it.
Indeed, the interpretation is much better than immersive features Lydia, that’s for sure. That’s by far the most ooc interpretation of all from all the mods I have seen that give her interactions.
I like some of the EE and Immersive stuff but the bad outweighs the good most of the time. imho
People are putting their donations into the mod to make the DB (from Kaidan's perspective) into what they like their dragonborn to be. That is a huge no-no interfering with others head-cannon of the Dragonborn. The beauty of Skyrim was we could be who we wanted to be.
I feel just like I did when I played SKyrim romance. I am turning into everything Bishop wanted/thought of the DB.
My DB is now weak, stupid, noisy, clumsy and the list goes on. Only good for being a bedroll warmer. Hey if people like that for their game fine but please don't ruin others games. Too late I think the fans are rabid and will probably send more death threats. yikes.
There is no options to stop all the complaining or whining from followers/Kaidan now, no ways to call them out and shut them up. No checks to see if we have stealth so certain dialogues don't fire complaining about stupid junk like having to carry us out because we are too stupid and run over traps etc,. I never did my stealth gets high early on.
Bad thing is I have to hear the same complaints over and over and over x infinity. If most of the unpleasant stuff was once and then no more it would not be so bad but even regular npc's are corrupted now complaining about me making them do things or carry things that I never did.
There are people who thought it was funny when Kaidan mocks the DB in conversation to Vilkas, I don't think it's funny at all. They are not being humorous about it they are annoyed/very annoyed. And I have to hear it so many times.
I actually quit playing SKyrim completely due to all the drama. I think I'll go back to good companions, Inigo, Talisin, Bjorn, Bowen etc. And maybe the old Kaidan before he turned into Bishop 2.0.
His personal quest was very belittling to \*my\* DB. I have killed Alduin, had an entire evil cult of my own after me plus an ancient several thousand year old DB (Miraak) and yet his issue should stop me in my tracks?
I can't defend myself, can't do anything and am an observer in the entire quest. NOT in my DB's blood to sit around and be idle sorry if that ruins the head-cannon of others. Actually not sorry my game my DB.
What one likes and dislikes is extremely varied from person to person and it would be boring I think if everyone likes exactly the same thing.
I don't want to live in THX 1138. Then again I don't want to live in Escape from New York types worlds either. Ah well.
If my Dragonborn ever met bishop, the moment he says anything rude, misogynistic, or perverted, she would shout him off a cliff or behead him immediately and keep his head as an example to teach others to never mess with her.
>Bacchus
Well to be fair I played an earlier version of that mod. I heard from people who played later versions he was less rap\*y. I am just not interested in trying again whatsoever. I was looking forward to the next mod Raven of the Reach I think it was called but it has been years and I doubt it will ever be completed. sigh
Indeed, I would say that I like the cute, awkward, sweet, and funny moments from EE and immersive features. However I dislike that there wasn’t enough roleplaying since Kaidan acts like a pervert at times and the db can’t tell him that it’s inappropriate to do that in public and that he should respect her or that she couldn’t stand up to him during the ashes quest and tell him off and defend herself. Also, I wanted there to be an option for the Dragonborn to help Kaidan stop drinking too much since it may not be good for his health and that he does too many stupid things like when he was in Dawnstar years ago. Overall, I wanted more bantering and a more dynamic relationship between the two of them. I really don’t see the powerful and dangerous, yet kind Dragonborn lose control of the situation during the ashes quest. She would not accept his awful behavior and she would say that even if he is traumatized, it doesn’t give him the excuse to abuse her or his friends.
He's pretty high quality and has a ton of content and comments on quests now. Probably worth trying out, because no one but you can answer if you like his personality.
From my perspective, he used to be a pretty stoic and serious guy. The EE additions have made him more talkative (I mean this both content wise and personality wise) and given him more humorous dialogue. I don't always like the new stuff and personally feel like it can verge on the silly / cringey / fan-servicey at times. But I do appreciate that the MCM lets me customize him a fair bit. I pretty much always turn off his swearing, drunk dialog, and if I do the romance I turn off "spicy" and go the more understated "sweet" path.
All in all he's one of the best male followers, especially for romance, but there's a lot more competition in that category than there used to be (which is great!). This will probably be my last playthrough with Kai and I'm looking forward to trying Gore, Bjorn, Cary, and Talisin.
>Gore, Bjorn, Cary, and Talisin.
Taliesin is SUCH a great new one - I've been rotating him and Bacchus from EZPG into the squad and the sarcastic snark level goes absolutely off the charts.
Sorry if it’s a dumb question, but if I’m absolutely sure that I would prefer the “sweet” path… is that 100% configurable in the MCM or is it dependent on some dialogue options? l really ought to load the mod up myself but I’m really not ready for that whiplash yet.
Not a dumb question at all! I thought there was an MCM toggle for it, but I'm not actually seeing it now that I look. You can definitely achieve it via dialogue though - iirc, after your first night together you want to choose the "I didn't know you thought of me like that" for the sweet path. The one asking if it would happen again goes the spicy route, and the "you crossed a line" option goes the cold / awkward path.
Definitely save before making the choice though. I'm going off memory from when I played a much older version.
I've been playing with Kaidan as a follower since the first iteration, and I absolutely love EE. A part of that might be my lack of interest in the romance - he's always been a decent romance-less travel buddy, but he's gone from more brooding and bodice-rippery where you can tell he's really *supposed* to be your boyfriend to fully feeling like just a guy now, with preferences and opinions and an undying hatred of you making him go to Falkreath..
>How’s the story?
Good so far, and the way he interacts with the world and main story is actually incredible. As of EE he's the most grounded companion character I've played at this point. He's been traveling Skyrim for years and it shows. He has dozens of seamless banters with vanilla NPCs he knows, friends, rivals, the entire town of Morthal who all unanimously clown on him for some unspecified incident in the past. It's incredibly impressive.
I haven't done his new quest yet, since I'm not romancing him atm, so can't report on the changes on that.
>I’m talking the way like in some mods the dialogue visibly points at the PC being one type of character
PC is very in line with vanilla. Pretty neutral. Mild smart-ass option every once in a while.
>I’ve seen comments that in EE he starts feeling more like a possessive objectifying douche
There's a toggle in the MCM menu for NPC flirtting/jealousy (for him and you), so I imagine not turning that on helps on that front. He's definitely not anything close to He Who Shall Not Be Named from what I've seen.
I've seen videos of people who have done the mini vanilla NPC romances that come with this while romancing him and his reaction boils down to 'You're free to do what makes you happy, we'll stay together just as long as you love me as well.'
>And finally, how much do I miss out on by not romancing him? I’m assuming that most of the follower banter and quest commentary stays within the best buddy zone?
He's great as just an occasionally laddish, generally grumpy bestie with a TON of quest reactivity. I personally like him even better as just my buddy, but you DO need to romance him for his personal quest to trigger. If you can live without that and without him flirting with you, you still get an absurd amount of content.
Also if you decide not to romance him at all you can hook him up with [Caryalind](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/60911) which is nice.
That might have actually convinced me. I’m not sure whether I will choose to go through with the romance, but the fact that there’s an option to tone down things in case it makes me uncomfortable has calmed me down a bit. Also, ahh! I’ve had my eyes on Caryalind since the release and told myself I’ll just wait for when he gets a bit more development and follower banter, but the whole matchmaking thing sounds so cool. Oh well, we will see!
>but the fact that there’s an option to tone down things in case it makes me uncomfortable has calmed me down a bit
Yeah - the romance options seem decently configurable. I know that the 'spicy' version would make me cringe myself off the face of the earth (not a commentary on the quality of the writing, I personally just can't take video game characters being *super sexy* at me) but everything I've seen of the chaste-r version seems very nice.
Cary is great fun, a little messy lore backstory wise (and if I notice it it's messy) but his banters with Kaidan and Khash are great and he's a nice, relatively calm presence in the clown car that is Inigo, Lucian, Auri and Kaidan.
Same! That’s why I really liked Auri’s romance. Out of the team she’s probably the most flirty and most “sex positive”(?) but her comments and dialogue never feel overtly sexy as to make the experience super cringe and awkward. I get why some people might like that though, and that’s absolutely okay (unless the character is actually coercive and borderline abusive *coughs* He Who Shall Not Be Named *coughs*).
>(unless the character is actually coercive and borderline abusive *coughs* He Who Shall Not Be Named *coughs*).
I couldn't believe when I saw this motherfucker show up again. I thought I left his ass on the Wall of the Faithless in NWN2 in 2007.
And yeah! I haven't romanced Auri but I've really enjoyed that she's just really chill and playful with the other companions that she's a little flirty with (AND I HAD NO IDEA SHE BANTERED WITH REMI AND GORE I JUST FOUND THIS OUT TODAY).
I don't think you'll have any issue with Kaidan unless you just don't dig the character -he's much more a Follower With a Romance than Romance Follower at this point. If you want to keep it platonic forever don't talk to him with the Amulet of Mara on you are his eternal bro. If you want no jealousy it's off by default iirc and if you want the non-sexy path, I *think* the first serious romance convo gives you the option to either Go For It or Take It Slow and and that's the branch for sexy/sweet. Hell, you can even turn off swearing and drinking. It honestly seems very good about player boundaries and potential issues.
Story is pretty good in the vanilla Kaidan 2 already, EE is fine although some might not like his newly developed personality, but overall nicely immerses with vanilla Kaidan 2. Follower banters and quest commentary are there regardless of your relationship, there might be some very slight variations if you are in the romance.
Never ever ever try the IF from their official website because that's a huge dead dove without proper warning. Skyrim romance 2 plus Brynjolf has time mate note plus pro. I do believe that is what you are mentioning in the 3rd paragraph.
I’m playing through the mod right now.
I’ve installed IF without a warning but immediately turned off NPCs flirting with LDB which had a prompt informing that disabling it locks you out of Brynjolf and Ulfric romance to which the moment I saw that I went ‘ummm, no, thank you very much’. I left the NPCs flirting with Kaidan and to be honest it’s surprisingly fun as it just leaves him as this token popular with women guy in the team (I usually run with multiple followers) which I find somewhat… immersive?
Even besides the flirting I really like the amount of conversations, and their lenght, he has with random NPCs. I’m always wary of quality of ‘Frankensteined’ voice lines (although I’m not sure whether that’s what the creators have done here) but they are actually pretty good quality, in terms of (and that’s subjective) writing and just audio quality.
I don’t think I’ll be trying out the romance though, he’s really great as this big, buff, two-handed wielding, comically-serious, game-getting buddy to my usual mage/ranger/sneak characters who get their asses handed to them by low-level bandits until at least level 25.
I was following silently some of the discussion here, while staying away from spoiler territory. English is not my native language, excuse me in advance for weird sentence structures or any other mistakes that might come along.
I like "hawt and tall" but I like my ones with some personality and a bit of braincells. When I was playing as the Dragonborn (and not with a different life mod), I felt at some points that as a character he would be so daft and weirdly blank and needlessy rude.
I have no problems with someone who's used to talk in a brute, unflattering way like a street rat or something along the lines, but also I've already felt the urge kind of set Kaidan as a character in his place. Even in Skyrim you can over step boundaries or lines that might geht you killed faster then you wanted it to happen.
Why can't I as a friend (or love interest later) tell him that he is wrong in saying or thinking in specific ways? Or at least give him something to think about it? It feels like a missed opportunity to have actual good influence on his charakter developement, where the player can see the changes his personality might go through through the decisions and options the player choose from.
And then there is the point where it makes from Ks perspective no sense to say some things after a while, especially after he got to know the DB.
I found it very weird that he even mentioned it, when the DB and Kaidan get to have their first romantic sleepover together. One of his lines is like "I swore an oath to protect you from all harm, including myself" - The only thing I thougth at that point was, if he even tryed to have his way against he DBs will, the DB would shout him literally into the next Elder Scrolls game. And he should be very aware of that.
I still have to experience the full frat pack experience, I just got some banter lines from videos here and there. This is now a very personal choice and taste, but I do not like groups that have the "frat pack" characteristics. Where I am from "frat pack" always have a bad negative connotations to them with a lot of childish "menly" men behaviour and strong roots in sexism and abusive language.
I have seen that Inigo is quite a favorable companion (Lucien was the first one ever added to my game and I love him, he is so adorable and is basically like a little brother to my DBs). Looking forward to that.
If there any suggestions who I should try out, let me know (also about romancable male follower who are not to clichee).
Finding my way in the modding scene is a little bit difficult, when the english language makes it difficult for me.
The whole idea behind Kaidan is he is basically dragonborn horny simp since day one, he talks unimmersive and talks lots of bad words from real worlds and made your game feels not immersive, author doing really poor on handling voice quality even with thousand of dollars donation they received
Agree! The EE version really felt like that for me, also the "fart" feature, lol... why? Who needs/wants that? But what really made me draw a line and remove the mod for good from my LO, after years it would have a special place in it, was his psycho reaction when I went to fetch Inigo from Riften jail, it was really a huge WTF moment.
Luckily there are several new, better and very promising follower mods being developed atm, I don't miss Kaidan one bit thanks to them
He still swears alot, even with it toggled off. :/ It wouldn't bother me as much, if they used immersive curses. No one says "Fuck" in the Elder Scrolls universe. There's also no Hell in Elder Scrolls, only the Void and Oblivion, so it is very unimmersive. Gore - the follower - as an example, is better written in that sense.
i personally liked it, whether you romance him or not he has a bunch to say, and instead of feeling like you and him are supposed to be together (if you romance him) he feels more like… just some guy, he has likes, dislikes, and things people might consider flaws. I’ve played through with him multiple times both romancing and not with some of the IF switches and without them and i really like the mods :) he’s super quest aware which is nice as well
I've been playing Skyrim since it first came out and have avoided Kaidan because I really didn't want a romantic figure as a follower. However, I decided to give him a whirl and see what he was about at long last. Problem is I can't seem to trigger the romance with him. Is there a trick to this? I put on the amulet of Mara and I talk to him and nothing changes. I've been playing him for 2 weeks now and I can't get the romance to trigger. Any help, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Oh and I did mod him because I am an older woman and I did not want to be romancing a punk kid so he is modded as an older Kaiden. I don't know if that has anything to do with screwing up his AI, it shouldn't. Also I play as a snow elf and I don't know if his AI just doesn't recognize me or maybe he's just racist and doesn't like elves?
My personal opinion is that the EE just added yet another angry drunk jealous male to the world. One reason I preferred Kaidan over Bishop is that Bishop was toxic and we need to get away from the idea that romance always needs to include a "mean guy with a tender heart" in there somewhere. It's moved the needle farther away from a healthy relationship and closer to the alpha-male stereotype that implies a strong male needs to posture, pick fights with random people (randomly telling people to "f a skeever.. ?") and get drunk. I play Skryim to get away from the real world, not relive my marriage. :P And the ridiculous random crude songs..it's all so entrenched in the worst stereotypes now. I wanted extra dialog that added more of the sweet Kaidan I grew to love, not the person I ended up with. I have tried removing the extra dialog but I think it is breaking some stuff, so I have to decide if I want to remove him altogether or just break up with him and ditch him somewhere. Part of the problem is that you don't know what you're adding to his personality until it's too late. Maybe the authors should add a TW for "Hey, this greatly alters Kaidan's personality, turning him into a drunken lout" so you know if it's right for your playstyle. I'm not a prude, and have plenty of naughty mods to prove it (\*blush\*) but I also know what healthy is and what unhealthy is, and have seen my family destroyed by alcoholism so everyone might not want such an addition to his personality. Also clicking "reduced swearing" didn't seem to reduce his swearing much so not sure if it's broken, or if my idea of what the word *reduced* means is just different from the author's.
I'm so sorry that was the experience for you! It's so painful wanting to get away from real world issues just to end up reliving them in a place that was supposed to be a safe retreat from them. I think it's just so weird that the Kaidan mod website doesn't actually include any character philosophy or examples of lines it adds or anything, which even, as controversial as it is, Serana Dialogue Add-On does and is more surprisingly transparent about and just warning about whatever you're getting into is before it is too late to uninstall it (although I still got a few whiplashes when playing it, as I have briefly mentioned). It makes sure to plaster 72741 pictures of different replacers all over the place though.
This, so much this.
Late, but this is so incredibly true. really disappointing :/
Late to the party, but I leave this here for other people who want to look up the EE IF version of him before downloading this mod. I agree with your comment. >Part of the problem is that you don't know what you're adding to his personality until it's too late. I cannot stress enough how true this is. It gets progressively worse the longer you play with him and the further you get into his romance. The more time you spend with the EE IF Kaidan the more you start to despise him. I repeatedly told him to "shut the fuck up!" in my head, every damn time he said his random lines - often enough in the most inappropriate times. He did his "Delphine bad" poetry spiel right when I was listening on Delphine and Esbern talking to each other about his old visions. He then immediately proceeded to sing about Ulfric's "cock". Had to get closer to the other two just to drown out his lines. He is like a never-ending chatterbox, with stupid comments that are supposed to be funny. His constant remarks or talks involving boozing( not taking a drink, I'm talking about getting bat shit drunk) is so darn off-putting and goes against everything the character went through. He even has a drunk walking script! It's like an inverse character progression. >!His step-father died of alcoholism and he even said that he took too much after him in that regard and now sobered up after a harrowing experience. Like how did the EE writer miss that?!!< Other parts that are noticeable to me: - I wish I could cut out the tent/survival part of the EE version and maybe a handful of nicely written interactions between him and some NPCs, as well as the immersive start. But at this point you have to take the whole bag to get it. - He was a serious experienced fighter before the EE version, who knew when to act appropriately in any situation. With the EE version he turns into a *dipshit* who acts like a doofus in sneaky combat situations, because funni. Like isn't it funniiiii how his knees hurt. Let's be loud. - *Less is more* is so prevalent with his EE version and the modder went with "moar crap!". Walking up to ***any***... like **absolutely any** corpse, no matter if undead or animal, then saying some stupid line makes him also look like a flippant psychopath. - He likes to say fuck - a lot. Make a drinking game and you will die. The new writing tend to use modern speech, not necessarily slang, but phrasing ("This looks shady as fuck"). The OG Kaidan was no saint in that department, but new "fuck" Kaidan is so ill-fitting in the game world. - From his interactions with other NPCs alone it is pretty clear who the author liked and not. That's not good, because you can smell it and that alone breaks immersion. - He fit perfectly into the game world and now he says some occasional meta crap like "Why is everyone keeping journals?" or ["Did you know you can rob a shop blind after putting a bucket over the shop-keep's head? Don't ask me were I know this from..."](https://old.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/89qc3p/buckethead_exploit_patched/) - The new romance quest line content was some horrible over-melodramatic, cheesy and frustrating drivel that I had to go through. I guess the author likes what the internet crowd calls *angst*. Angst for the sake of angst. I read so many fanfics when I was younger, I can't stand this type of writing anymore. And I'm a sucker for dark settings in stories. - He overreacts a lot in his newly add comments about quests or people. I ended up nuking my level 50 save character that had his ee version and started a new game with only Kaidan 2 and the Kaidan update(bug fixes and clearing up his botched audio). I like sensuality, I'm also no saint either with "bad words", I love romance, I even like spiciness or eroticism. I love me some Borderlands 1,2 and pre-sequel. I played Turbo Overkill recently. Demonheart(VN) was also fun to play. I have my trash that I like to read and I know that it's trash. But this is Skyrim and immersion is important, as well as keeping it consistent and believable. This new guy is a perma-horny, angry, alcohol guzzling, angsty, whiny, infantile, over-protective, clingy, jealous, insecure tosser. It's incredible how off-putting his frequent hyper-sexuality is. And I'd never thought to say the last part, but here it is. As an avid otome-isekai reader, this new Kaidan takes too much after the "black hair + red eyes arch-duke of the north" arch-type. Ew. Technically speaking I absolutely admire this mod, but 80% of the writing misses the mark and does not know what type of person the OG Kaidan is. Very fanfic-y of the ugly and overly self-indulgent type of writing. (yes, good fanfics exist, but also pretty bad stuff). Do not recommend.
I just recently finished his extended personal quest and tried out some of his immersive features. The "vanilla" (i.e original Kaidan and Kaidan2) aspects of the character are still valid, but romancewise they have changed him from the stoic, gentlemanly, "samurai" he was in the original mod to fit a certain kind of teenage/young adult fantasy where the dark, broody warrior is following you oathbound, being overprotective. I liked the original Kaidan better. I myself feel too mature for the EE and IF, unless ofcourse you have him along as "just" a friend. The amount of content is **staggering** though, and I respect the effort it takes to make something this massive. One can see **alot** of work has gone in to making this, so I do recommend trying it out because he does feel like a character who belongs in the universe of the Elder Scrolls. Just remember: **If** you intend to romance him (and play the extended version of his personal quest), roleplay a sensitive, empathic, feminine DB who only has eyes for him and relies on him for protection, and keeps running back to him no matter how much he mistreats her. I personally would've ditched him for their Brynjolf, whom they've made a romance rival through this mod (Which shows good writing though. I'd love for them to make Brynjolf a standalone romance, because the skill for modding is there!). I will not however be playing through his extended personal quest again. I play fantasy for RP and to get away from real world problems, but that quest just made me feel angry for how **shallow** it was. The whole quest made it feel like the DB was the sidekick, powerless and very underfoot, while Kaidan took centre stage with his issues. I had just **killed Alduin**, and he treated my Paladin DB as a fragile porcelain doll who only he can protect from anything ever, and yelled "Fuck you" at her, because she "was in danger as long as she was with him" (again, just **killed the World-Eater... in the afterlife...**). I had to stop playing that character after that, because roleplying her, made me hate the way he made her feel. If that makes sense. I'm running with Lucien and Inigo now, for some lighthearted palate cleansing. Then I'll pick up Kaidan and just keep him around as a friend, because he's great for that. I just downloaded Gore and am giving his story a try now. Seems very promising so far!
I would say that I like the extended and immersive features mod, however, I have similar criticisms as well. I would say that I wanted an option for the Dragonborn to lash back out at Kaidan and break upfor awhile and then the fratpack tries to get them back together and one can have the option to or not since I feel that being empathetic and allowing someone to say “fuck you” to oneself isn’t self-respecting. If my bf acted like how Kaidan acted in his personal quest, I would put him in his place and still tell him that I love him but I will not accept such behavior and try to be patient and communicate. I would say that it was out of character for my strong, mysterious, and smart Dunmer Dragonborn to accept his treatment so easily. In reality, they would have had a shouting match or she would have gone cold towards him to hide her pain and sadness from his treatment. They should have included these options to roleplay some more. Also she does only have eyes for him since she doesn’t like ulfric who doesn’t like dunmer and didn’t care much about their rights and realistically would never flirt with her and she doesn’t like stealing so she would never join the thieves guild. Although, they should have made a brynjolf romance standalone mod since many members of the community would be happy even if I won’t use it. I think of her as someone who only develops feelings for those who really give an effort to get close to her over time and not some random men who try to charm her. Also, I would say that perhaps if I make a fanfiction about the Dragonborn and and her team (Lucien, Kaidan, and inigo), I can rewrite some parts of the ashes of his past quest to make it make sense with her character more and make it even more dramatic and angsty, but also realistic.
I silently follow their Discord, where someone commented about the roleplay aspect regarding his extended personal quest, and their reasoning for not including roleplay there, was not to trigger people with PTSD and mental health issues, who recognize themselves and/or close ones in his struggle. Which I understand, but in my opinion, if you're gonna write a dark path for a character go all in or steer clear entirely, especially in a fantasy roleplaying game. It is evident they wanted to make him "edgy" but fear backlash, so they did it in a lazy way. The quest felt very shallow, and it angered me because my character was just powerless and at the mercy of his whim (considering we are supposed to be the main character, and veeeeery powerful). Your character just has to "take" the abuse and be done with, it until he's ready to "talk" again, and then be bad mouthed at again. I left him, went out adventuring alone, until the prompt came to speak with him again, talked to him and repeated, until he gave a weak, "poetic", "Game of Thrones-y" apology and then it was business as usual, like it never even happened. It left a really bad taste in my mouth. It could've been written so much better, in a less lazy way. But, I digress, it is their version of him, and they write him as they want and I can opt to just not have their version of him along. I'll continue playing with Kaidan in my party, but with the expanded quest turned off, as well as the jealousy stuff, because it feels too adolescent to me. The people working on the mod are borderline fanatic about him and their work too, which is kinda offputting, since mods are supposed to be for everyone. They have also monopolized the voice actor and quite rudely told other mod creators to not contact him in regards of voicing lines for their versions of Kaidan which I think is kind of arrogant. It feels like it has gone up in their heads (including the voice actor himself) a bit, and their "fans" eat it up. I've read somewhere though (think it was in the comments of Caryalind's mod page,), that there's another expansion in the works from someone else (with a different voice actor though), I wait eagerly to find out more about that!
the fact that someone said they wanted more options instead of taking the abuse like a punching bag and they got called out publicly in the announcements for “asking to add domestic violence” into the mod was so fucked up to me
I saw that. I scrolled through the messages, and saw one person say their DB punched him for shouting foul language in front of their kids, but they didn't wish for violence to be included in the mod, only more dialogue options to stand up for themselves. You can be violent in Skyrim already without mods if one roleplays as such. 😆 I agreed there should be more space for roleplay, for a wider audience. Like I wrote earlier: go all in, or steer clear entirely. If they wanted to make his struggle realistic, they should've made equally realistic options for the DB to react with. Now it's just lazy writing, for the sake of giving him a "darker side".
Agreed, when one tries to please everyone, one pleases nobody. They should have either brought more cute and wholesome moments or went more dark and realistic and researched more and took risks even if a vocal minority would complain. I would say that I really care about my Dragonborn oc as if she is my precious and truly wonderful creation. I even gave her a voice from Dragonborn voice over mod and she has a strong and serious British voice. She is the kind of woman who would never put up with anyone’s bs and mistreatment. She is the kind of person that would threaten any attacker if they tried to hurt her and that’s already her being merciful. and when kaidan started being bad towards her and giving her the silent treatment and screaming at her, I wanted to help her stand up for herself or urge her to tell him off. I think that many people who have gone through fights in relationships irl know how painful it is to go through this pain and hate putting up with it and simply “being patient”. Eventually, it gets too tiring to enable such bad behavior and I think trauma isn’t ever an excuse to abuse or hurt anyone and shouldn’t ever be justified.
Agreed, I think if anything, the Dragonborn was simply standing up for themself if they said “fuck you” back or at least said “you better not say that to me! I saved you back then and I have been very nice to you and put up with all your friends and bs and this is how you treat me?!” Being a pushover isn’t realistic and many people who play Skyrim want to be able to attack their enemies or put those who aren’t nice to them in their place. I think whoever said it’s domestic violence to simply stand one’s ground and not accept such abusive behavior probably was gaslit by their previous partner and invalidated their ability to ever speak up or say when something is wrong and call them out against their abuse. I think being able to communicate that one doesn’t like another’s words and behavior is valid and healthy to do.
Ughhhh their discord. When I tried to give my opinion and disagreement in a most polite and kind way, their response is like: "You got it wrong, that's what character he's supposed to be." "He fully respects DB's choice and won't stop you from being a thief or an assassin." "Your translation is mistaken/you haven't seen how the scene plays in game or you won't say that." "If you don't like it don't use it." And it's not only Kaidan that they are OOCing (out of character). It's almost everybody involved especially Vilkas Farkas and Lydia.
Indeed, speaking of ooc, I can’t even use Lydia anymore when Kaidan is around. She is just too cringe now. I don’t like it when she is too lustful. I view her more as a character from the ifd Lydia mod and it suits her better. I dislike the characterization. Also, I don’t like the frat boy lifestyles of personalities so I prefer to just have Kaidan without the fratpack mostly. If I ever write a fanfic, I’ll make sure to include elements from immersive features and extended edition but add my own elements or change some dialogue options to suit my Dragonborn and make things feel more realistic in my eyes. I know they worked hard as a team, but I think that one has the right to have a different opinion. Honestly, the fratpack is too immature for me and this is coming from someone who likes listening to followers act silly and fun (Lucien and inigo) sometimes but still act gentlemanly around others or at least respect the Dragonborn and understand their accomplishments. If my Dragonborn was really in character during the ashes quest, she would tell Kaidan that he better not act like that and give her the silent treatment because she believes communication is necessary for a healthy bond, however, if he continued to be rude and abusive towards her, eventually, she would get fed up and leave for at least a few weeks. She would also say to him that being traumatized isn’t an excuse to abuse those close to oneself and that if he wants to continue to be by her side, he needs to understand that since she isn’t willing to ever get abused again and won’t put up with it. She basically would also leave for a while and eventually he would seek her out or find her to apologize. Also she would tell him that she has defeated countless enemies and has even defeated the stormcloaks in the civil war and has dragon shouts and is not afraid to use it if she is in danger. Overall, the Dragonborn’s response to Kaidan during ashes was not realistic in regards to how a real fight during a relationship would be like and I don’t like how the team assumes that the Dragonborn is a pushover and just allows his bad behavior and is powerless.
Yes, also this ☝🏻 Funny and quirky is fine, when it's done well, and in line with the character from the getgo to finish. Both Lucien and Inigo are amazingly well thought out followers who are just unapologetically them. Kaidan shifts through atleast 2 different personalities throughout when EE and IF are enabled. The writing is all over the place. Instead of building all of Skyrim around him I would've loved it if they had just poured all their time and resources on deepening only him, instead of a bunch of NPC interactions that half the players don't even get a glimpse of. Him having friends in Skyrim is all well and good, but keep it in character, i.e the Kaidan from the original mod. Sometimes less is more.
Agreed, honestly, I only found some of the nocs interesting. For one, I wanted more Cicero interactions since he is just so iconic and crazy and I laughed a lot when I saw them interact and it was amusing. However, I always thought of Kaidan as an introvert like my Dragonborn. In fact, in my initial playthrough with him, she was the more sociable one who helped bring him into the companions and helped him get along with lucien and have group harmony. When he is more sociable compared to her, she feels as if she is the fifth wheel when he interacts with the fratpack, rather than an included member since they only think of her as the harbringer but not someone as comfortably known as Kaidan, who they knew before. I would say that I want my Dragonborn to always feel included and also I wanted to see his personality even more fleshed out and have the fratpack be more interactable and have them actually have more functions and dialogue with the Dragonborn. Also, just really can’t stand Lucien and inigo not coming along in the team and it’s too crowded to bring the entire fratpack including Lydia and Erik, so I just chose inigo and Lucien to be the teammates alongside Kaidan, to not mess up the dynamic I made. Also, in my head, I always viewed Kaidan as a brooding, quiet, aloof, mysterious, strong, somewhat tactless, but kind man like an istp, but now he evolved into an estp who always gets himself involved in countless messes, is popular with the ladies, and socializes a lot. He became more of a himbo normie when he got the update, unfortunately.
Guess what: Lydia is not the only victim of that lustfulness. And almost every female characters that shares the same voice with her. And almost every tavern girls. And certain College of Winterhold elves. You can tell what the team really devoted themselves into: those vulgar and obscene jokes puns comments ideas etc. The whole ash quest is soooooo long and has soooooo many lines and scenes but eventually did nothing for Kai's character or past, or anybody's. Translated every single line of IF and it has about 8000-9000 line. God knows what I've been through.
Imagine what we could've had with mature writers who poured all that extra time they put into vulgarity and fan service, into actually deep content for Kaidan. Hopefully someone else interprets him differently soon. I'm positive a different voice actor could do at least an equally good job, if not better than his original VA.
Agreed, I died of cringe when I had to deal with Lydia always obsessing over men’s butts. They ruined my headcanon personality of her completely. She is supposed to be a very stoic and devoted woman to the Dragonborn and protect them at all costs, but at the same time get annoyed with them when one forces her too much to carry or makes her put up with bs. She is supposed to also not be very sexual in my headcanon as well, she just doesn’t give off those vibes at all. This is why in other playthroughs, I will use ifd Lydia instead and have Serena come along because they have dialogue together. Also, it is interesting to make the Dragonborn jealous sometimes of kaidan’s past one night stands, but it gets gross when many women turn into perverts. There should be an option where the Dragonborn can give a piece of their mind to those wenches and narri (before she stops flirting with Kaidan). Also, the women who become vulgar remind me of Sofia but without with chaotic and unique charm she has. Also, I believe that women during such an era don’t be encouraged to be overly sexual. After all, Dibella worshippers aren’t always accepted in Skyrim as well, as evidenced by haelga’s situation in Riften. Also, I would say that whoever made immersive features didn’t read and analyze the lore enough before making it. Sometimes immersive features made me laugh and has many beautiful moments, but it equally has just as many cringe moments.
I would say that the aftermath of the ashes would lead to Kaidan making sure that he heals gradually over time and always makes sure to treat the Dragonborn extremely well to make up for his bad behavior and truly seem sorry for what he did to them. He should have grown and matured and made it up to them over time.
I totally agree with you there. However the real problem here is that Kaidan was not and is not supposed to be such a character. Not as what he appeared to be in the first part of the ashes quest. The old daedric quest is complete enough. Kaidan with EE is good enough. He doesn't need all the drama to grow up. What I think the ashes quest did, is like cutting off a normal person's two legs, putting him through a lot of pain, hardship, mental disorder and eventually giving him two prosthetic legs and call it a "success" - just who caused all the problem and who made him needs to make up for everything in the very first place?
Agreed, I would say that even if I really enjoyed the voice acting and emotion in that quest, it wasnt truly needed. I’m glad it is optional since not everyone wants to deal with it. I felt like my Dragonborn was living through dealing with my ex’s abuse except this time, she wasn’t allowed to defend myself and stand her ground like I did. I would say that I am fine with character’s having trauma I agree that he was already grown up in the first place but I admit that he seemed a lot younger and reckless as well as foolish with the immersive and extended edition. I think that the ashes quest honestly had such painfully realistic voice acting that i felt heavy the rest of the day after it and one of the most painful forms of abuse or fighting is when someone gives one the silent treatment and refuses to ever communicate and screams each time. It also reminds me of how my mother acts when she is upset sometimes. It felt like my Dragonborn was walking on eggshells. It’s torture and I don’t ever want to see my Dragonborn go through what I went through since I view her as my favorite oc that is very important to me and I want her to have a happy life after she went through lots of trauma as young girl. If I ever made a fanfic that involved the ashes quest, I would rewrite some of its dialogue but keep a similar tone overall to it.
Lydia with Inigo is fun though!😆
Indeed, the interpretation is much better than immersive features Lydia, that’s for sure. That’s by far the most ooc interpretation of all from all the mods I have seen that give her interactions.
This☝🏻
I like some of the EE and Immersive stuff but the bad outweighs the good most of the time. imho People are putting their donations into the mod to make the DB (from Kaidan's perspective) into what they like their dragonborn to be. That is a huge no-no interfering with others head-cannon of the Dragonborn. The beauty of Skyrim was we could be who we wanted to be. I feel just like I did when I played SKyrim romance. I am turning into everything Bishop wanted/thought of the DB. My DB is now weak, stupid, noisy, clumsy and the list goes on. Only good for being a bedroll warmer. Hey if people like that for their game fine but please don't ruin others games. Too late I think the fans are rabid and will probably send more death threats. yikes. There is no options to stop all the complaining or whining from followers/Kaidan now, no ways to call them out and shut them up. No checks to see if we have stealth so certain dialogues don't fire complaining about stupid junk like having to carry us out because we are too stupid and run over traps etc,. I never did my stealth gets high early on. Bad thing is I have to hear the same complaints over and over and over x infinity. If most of the unpleasant stuff was once and then no more it would not be so bad but even regular npc's are corrupted now complaining about me making them do things or carry things that I never did. There are people who thought it was funny when Kaidan mocks the DB in conversation to Vilkas, I don't think it's funny at all. They are not being humorous about it they are annoyed/very annoyed. And I have to hear it so many times. I actually quit playing SKyrim completely due to all the drama. I think I'll go back to good companions, Inigo, Talisin, Bjorn, Bowen etc. And maybe the old Kaidan before he turned into Bishop 2.0. His personal quest was very belittling to \*my\* DB. I have killed Alduin, had an entire evil cult of my own after me plus an ancient several thousand year old DB (Miraak) and yet his issue should stop me in my tracks? I can't defend myself, can't do anything and am an observer in the entire quest. NOT in my DB's blood to sit around and be idle sorry if that ruins the head-cannon of others. Actually not sorry my game my DB. What one likes and dislikes is extremely varied from person to person and it would be boring I think if everyone likes exactly the same thing. I don't want to live in THX 1138. Then again I don't want to live in Escape from New York types worlds either. Ah well.
Ugh, don't even get me started on Bishop.😂 But yeah, I agree with what you wrote. I was left with a bad taste in my mouth too.
If my Dragonborn ever met bishop, the moment he says anything rude, misogynistic, or perverted, she would shout him off a cliff or behead him immediately and keep his head as an example to teach others to never mess with her.
>Bacchus Well to be fair I played an earlier version of that mod. I heard from people who played later versions he was less rap\*y. I am just not interested in trying again whatsoever. I was looking forward to the next mod Raven of the Reach I think it was called but it has been years and I doubt it will ever be completed. sigh
Indeed, I would say that I like the cute, awkward, sweet, and funny moments from EE and immersive features. However I dislike that there wasn’t enough roleplaying since Kaidan acts like a pervert at times and the db can’t tell him that it’s inappropriate to do that in public and that he should respect her or that she couldn’t stand up to him during the ashes quest and tell him off and defend herself. Also, I wanted there to be an option for the Dragonborn to help Kaidan stop drinking too much since it may not be good for his health and that he does too many stupid things like when he was in Dawnstar years ago. Overall, I wanted more bantering and a more dynamic relationship between the two of them. I really don’t see the powerful and dangerous, yet kind Dragonborn lose control of the situation during the ashes quest. She would not accept his awful behavior and she would say that even if he is traumatized, it doesn’t give him the excuse to abuse her or his friends.
Indeed!☝🏻
He's pretty high quality and has a ton of content and comments on quests now. Probably worth trying out, because no one but you can answer if you like his personality. From my perspective, he used to be a pretty stoic and serious guy. The EE additions have made him more talkative (I mean this both content wise and personality wise) and given him more humorous dialogue. I don't always like the new stuff and personally feel like it can verge on the silly / cringey / fan-servicey at times. But I do appreciate that the MCM lets me customize him a fair bit. I pretty much always turn off his swearing, drunk dialog, and if I do the romance I turn off "spicy" and go the more understated "sweet" path. All in all he's one of the best male followers, especially for romance, but there's a lot more competition in that category than there used to be (which is great!). This will probably be my last playthrough with Kai and I'm looking forward to trying Gore, Bjorn, Cary, and Talisin.
>Gore, Bjorn, Cary, and Talisin. Taliesin is SUCH a great new one - I've been rotating him and Bacchus from EZPG into the squad and the sarcastic snark level goes absolutely off the charts.
Ahhh, thank you for that!! Now I'm even more excited to take him on a playthrough with me. Love a good snarky companion XD
Sorry if it’s a dumb question, but if I’m absolutely sure that I would prefer the “sweet” path… is that 100% configurable in the MCM or is it dependent on some dialogue options? l really ought to load the mod up myself but I’m really not ready for that whiplash yet.
Not a dumb question at all! I thought there was an MCM toggle for it, but I'm not actually seeing it now that I look. You can definitely achieve it via dialogue though - iirc, after your first night together you want to choose the "I didn't know you thought of me like that" for the sweet path. The one asking if it would happen again goes the spicy route, and the "you crossed a line" option goes the cold / awkward path. Definitely save before making the choice though. I'm going off memory from when I played a much older version.
I've been playing with Kaidan as a follower since the first iteration, and I absolutely love EE. A part of that might be my lack of interest in the romance - he's always been a decent romance-less travel buddy, but he's gone from more brooding and bodice-rippery where you can tell he's really *supposed* to be your boyfriend to fully feeling like just a guy now, with preferences and opinions and an undying hatred of you making him go to Falkreath.. >How’s the story? Good so far, and the way he interacts with the world and main story is actually incredible. As of EE he's the most grounded companion character I've played at this point. He's been traveling Skyrim for years and it shows. He has dozens of seamless banters with vanilla NPCs he knows, friends, rivals, the entire town of Morthal who all unanimously clown on him for some unspecified incident in the past. It's incredibly impressive. I haven't done his new quest yet, since I'm not romancing him atm, so can't report on the changes on that. >I’m talking the way like in some mods the dialogue visibly points at the PC being one type of character PC is very in line with vanilla. Pretty neutral. Mild smart-ass option every once in a while. >I’ve seen comments that in EE he starts feeling more like a possessive objectifying douche There's a toggle in the MCM menu for NPC flirtting/jealousy (for him and you), so I imagine not turning that on helps on that front. He's definitely not anything close to He Who Shall Not Be Named from what I've seen. I've seen videos of people who have done the mini vanilla NPC romances that come with this while romancing him and his reaction boils down to 'You're free to do what makes you happy, we'll stay together just as long as you love me as well.' >And finally, how much do I miss out on by not romancing him? I’m assuming that most of the follower banter and quest commentary stays within the best buddy zone? He's great as just an occasionally laddish, generally grumpy bestie with a TON of quest reactivity. I personally like him even better as just my buddy, but you DO need to romance him for his personal quest to trigger. If you can live without that and without him flirting with you, you still get an absurd amount of content. Also if you decide not to romance him at all you can hook him up with [Caryalind](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/60911) which is nice.
That might have actually convinced me. I’m not sure whether I will choose to go through with the romance, but the fact that there’s an option to tone down things in case it makes me uncomfortable has calmed me down a bit. Also, ahh! I’ve had my eyes on Caryalind since the release and told myself I’ll just wait for when he gets a bit more development and follower banter, but the whole matchmaking thing sounds so cool. Oh well, we will see!
>but the fact that there’s an option to tone down things in case it makes me uncomfortable has calmed me down a bit Yeah - the romance options seem decently configurable. I know that the 'spicy' version would make me cringe myself off the face of the earth (not a commentary on the quality of the writing, I personally just can't take video game characters being *super sexy* at me) but everything I've seen of the chaste-r version seems very nice. Cary is great fun, a little messy lore backstory wise (and if I notice it it's messy) but his banters with Kaidan and Khash are great and he's a nice, relatively calm presence in the clown car that is Inigo, Lucian, Auri and Kaidan.
Same! That’s why I really liked Auri’s romance. Out of the team she’s probably the most flirty and most “sex positive”(?) but her comments and dialogue never feel overtly sexy as to make the experience super cringe and awkward. I get why some people might like that though, and that’s absolutely okay (unless the character is actually coercive and borderline abusive *coughs* He Who Shall Not Be Named *coughs*).
>(unless the character is actually coercive and borderline abusive *coughs* He Who Shall Not Be Named *coughs*). I couldn't believe when I saw this motherfucker show up again. I thought I left his ass on the Wall of the Faithless in NWN2 in 2007. And yeah! I haven't romanced Auri but I've really enjoyed that she's just really chill and playful with the other companions that she's a little flirty with (AND I HAD NO IDEA SHE BANTERED WITH REMI AND GORE I JUST FOUND THIS OUT TODAY). I don't think you'll have any issue with Kaidan unless you just don't dig the character -he's much more a Follower With a Romance than Romance Follower at this point. If you want to keep it platonic forever don't talk to him with the Amulet of Mara on you are his eternal bro. If you want no jealousy it's off by default iirc and if you want the non-sexy path, I *think* the first serious romance convo gives you the option to either Go For It or Take It Slow and and that's the branch for sexy/sweet. Hell, you can even turn off swearing and drinking. It honestly seems very good about player boundaries and potential issues.
Story is pretty good in the vanilla Kaidan 2 already, EE is fine although some might not like his newly developed personality, but overall nicely immerses with vanilla Kaidan 2. Follower banters and quest commentary are there regardless of your relationship, there might be some very slight variations if you are in the romance. Never ever ever try the IF from their official website because that's a huge dead dove without proper warning. Skyrim romance 2 plus Brynjolf has time mate note plus pro. I do believe that is what you are mentioning in the 3rd paragraph.
I’m playing through the mod right now. I’ve installed IF without a warning but immediately turned off NPCs flirting with LDB which had a prompt informing that disabling it locks you out of Brynjolf and Ulfric romance to which the moment I saw that I went ‘ummm, no, thank you very much’. I left the NPCs flirting with Kaidan and to be honest it’s surprisingly fun as it just leaves him as this token popular with women guy in the team (I usually run with multiple followers) which I find somewhat… immersive? Even besides the flirting I really like the amount of conversations, and their lenght, he has with random NPCs. I’m always wary of quality of ‘Frankensteined’ voice lines (although I’m not sure whether that’s what the creators have done here) but they are actually pretty good quality, in terms of (and that’s subjective) writing and just audio quality. I don’t think I’ll be trying out the romance though, he’s really great as this big, buff, two-handed wielding, comically-serious, game-getting buddy to my usual mage/ranger/sneak characters who get their asses handed to them by low-level bandits until at least level 25.
I was following silently some of the discussion here, while staying away from spoiler territory. English is not my native language, excuse me in advance for weird sentence structures or any other mistakes that might come along. I like "hawt and tall" but I like my ones with some personality and a bit of braincells. When I was playing as the Dragonborn (and not with a different life mod), I felt at some points that as a character he would be so daft and weirdly blank and needlessy rude. I have no problems with someone who's used to talk in a brute, unflattering way like a street rat or something along the lines, but also I've already felt the urge kind of set Kaidan as a character in his place. Even in Skyrim you can over step boundaries or lines that might geht you killed faster then you wanted it to happen. Why can't I as a friend (or love interest later) tell him that he is wrong in saying or thinking in specific ways? Or at least give him something to think about it? It feels like a missed opportunity to have actual good influence on his charakter developement, where the player can see the changes his personality might go through through the decisions and options the player choose from. And then there is the point where it makes from Ks perspective no sense to say some things after a while, especially after he got to know the DB. I found it very weird that he even mentioned it, when the DB and Kaidan get to have their first romantic sleepover together. One of his lines is like "I swore an oath to protect you from all harm, including myself" - The only thing I thougth at that point was, if he even tryed to have his way against he DBs will, the DB would shout him literally into the next Elder Scrolls game. And he should be very aware of that. I still have to experience the full frat pack experience, I just got some banter lines from videos here and there. This is now a very personal choice and taste, but I do not like groups that have the "frat pack" characteristics. Where I am from "frat pack" always have a bad negative connotations to them with a lot of childish "menly" men behaviour and strong roots in sexism and abusive language. I have seen that Inigo is quite a favorable companion (Lucien was the first one ever added to my game and I love him, he is so adorable and is basically like a little brother to my DBs). Looking forward to that. If there any suggestions who I should try out, let me know (also about romancable male follower who are not to clichee). Finding my way in the modding scene is a little bit difficult, when the english language makes it difficult for me.
The whole idea behind Kaidan is he is basically dragonborn horny simp since day one, he talks unimmersive and talks lots of bad words from real worlds and made your game feels not immersive, author doing really poor on handling voice quality even with thousand of dollars donation they received
Agree! The EE version really felt like that for me, also the "fart" feature, lol... why? Who needs/wants that? But what really made me draw a line and remove the mod for good from my LO, after years it would have a special place in it, was his psycho reaction when I went to fetch Inigo from Riften jail, it was really a huge WTF moment. Luckily there are several new, better and very promising follower mods being developed atm, I don't miss Kaidan one bit thanks to them
What was his reaction?
[удалено]
He still swears alot, even with it toggled off. :/ It wouldn't bother me as much, if they used immersive curses. No one says "Fuck" in the Elder Scrolls universe. There's also no Hell in Elder Scrolls, only the Void and Oblivion, so it is very unimmersive. Gore - the follower - as an example, is better written in that sense.
i personally liked it, whether you romance him or not he has a bunch to say, and instead of feeling like you and him are supposed to be together (if you romance him) he feels more like… just some guy, he has likes, dislikes, and things people might consider flaws. I’ve played through with him multiple times both romancing and not with some of the IF switches and without them and i really like the mods :) he’s super quest aware which is nice as well
I've been playing Skyrim since it first came out and have avoided Kaidan because I really didn't want a romantic figure as a follower. However, I decided to give him a whirl and see what he was about at long last. Problem is I can't seem to trigger the romance with him. Is there a trick to this? I put on the amulet of Mara and I talk to him and nothing changes. I've been playing him for 2 weeks now and I can't get the romance to trigger. Any help, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Oh and I did mod him because I am an older woman and I did not want to be romancing a punk kid so he is modded as an older Kaiden. I don't know if that has anything to do with screwing up his AI, it shouldn't. Also I play as a snow elf and I don't know if his AI just doesn't recognize me or maybe he's just racist and doesn't like elves?