Skyrim – starting into mods. I really need help

[farlaff]

So, I had never played Skyrim even though I bought the game on Steam sometime after it was launched. Like I said elsewhere (check https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/243219/starting-skyrim-for-real-this-time-i-hope-some-questions/), I like to invest in games that could show the potential of a given system to have such AAA games, so I double dipped and bought a copy for my Switch back in 2017. Started playing 2 months ago and now my Archer character is already at level 79 with many many hours spent on family and house care (loved the Hearthfire part of the game – married Aela, she is beautiful and a blast follower but kind of a bitch when it comes to the houses; I spent so much effort on the lake manor and she still complains…).

So, I already started thinking of a second playthrough, this time focusing on a mage path.

But I wanted to play it on my old Steam copy.

Already found and got the 3 DLCs and I really wanted to mod the game. Went down and started my research for mods that I would want. This is a list of what seemed essential (please let me know if there is anything else I should consider using):

• Smart Souls
• Run for your lives
• SMIM
• SkyUI (but I don’t know if it is reeeaaaally necessary since I’ll be playing on a controller – many other mods demand that you have it, though)
• Unread Books Glow

After this research, I got the game installed last Monday. Since it is my first time modding a game, I felt like a child in a candy store and started downloading many things, from both Workshop and Nexus. Here is a list of things that I wanted to try out (and installed, most of them):

• Skyrim HD – 2K textures
• A Quality World Map
• Climates Of Tamriel - Weather - Lighting - Audio
• Purity - Brighter Nights
• Interesting NPCs
• Balanced Magic
• Skyrim Flora Overhaul
• Pure Waters
• True Skyrim
• Detailed Cities
• Hearthfire multiple adoptions• moonpath to elsweyr
• The Rabbit Hole
• Immersive Saturation Boost
• Marriage Mod - To Have And To Hold
• Luscious faces

For every new install I went on to a fresh start. But the game started to act weird, which I realized in one of those playthroughs. NPCs mainly started to lag down and not do their scripts properly. The better example of this is Camilla right in the beginning, when she is supposed to tell you where the bandits can be located. She would just stand there or walk very slowly. On the road to Whiterun, the imperials with a prisoner would also just be stuck there and not walk. I tried uninstalling the latest mods (the ones I did not have when the game was working properly) to see if it would solve my problem. Nothing changed. Then I went on to uninstall the game and all mods, started another file (yes, wasted this much time and effort) and got the same problem!

I have now uninstalled it again, deleted the file folder and everything that accompanied it, along with the Workshop mods and the vortex files (I uninstalled them all) but at this point I have to recognize I’m probably a sore noob that needs help instead of keeping trying to no avail. Can someone help me find how to solve this and carry on with my modding adventure? Thank you so much for helping me recover my claw, oops, game!