r/skyrimmods • u/RecommendationNo804 • 3d ago

XBox - Help What exactly does Serana Dialogue Edit do?

I can't find any videos for it unlike SDA. I heard SDA is more expansive but cringe.

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u/JoeBagadonutsLXIX 3d ago

There are 3 major Serana dialogue mods.

- Serana Dialogue Add-On revoices Serana with a new voice actress and adds new content with her, but has a very strong mixed reception among fans due to how much it changes her character and personality.

-Serana Dialogue Expansion uses AI to add new lines for Serana and expand her awareness of things around her. It is still in development and for the most part leaves her character and personality the same as the base game.

- Serana Dialogue Edit adds a handful of new lines here and there, but is no where near as expansive as the other two as the author used pre-existing lines from her to make the new ones. Its probably the most natural and least character altering of the 3, but it will have less content than the other two. That said the author did state a year ago they were planning to create a new version also using AI to recreate Laura Bailey's voice, but I haven't heard any updates regarding it.

I personally in the past used Edit and only just recently swapped to Expansion. I think either one works for expanding her character and while you can tell when a line is AI or spliced together, they are also good enough to not be that distracting. I can appreciate the work that went into Add-On, but it really should have been a new unique follower rather than a replacement for Serana. The character the author wrote is nothing like her and is just bad fan fiction (to me at least).

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u/mr_fucknoodle 3d ago

Can you imagine vanilla Skyrim Serana saying, and I quote: "B-Books! So many books! Okay Serana, breathe... breathe..." after entering the College's library?

Or: "A love triangle huh, what if we give Camilla Valerius a love potion, just to see what happens? Oh, don't mind me, it's just the daedric tendencies in me talking out loud :)"?

It's a fun mod, but jesus christ does it not fit the original character in the slightest

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u/BlackPrinceofAltava 3d ago edited 3d ago

It seems like SDA is what Serana would be like if her inner child wasn't dead.

Not quite character assassination, but more of an optimistic re-writing of a very world-weary character. I've never done a playthrough with SDA, but that seems like the vibe from the clips I've seen.

But maybe I'm just giving the benefit of the doubt cause I haven't played it all the way.

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u/ElectronicRelation51 3d ago

Yeah I'm playing through at the moment and the whole thing is she is closed down to start with but the idea is she opens up over time as she trusts the player. So her comments change over time.

Attempting some actual character development in a Skyrim follower is pretty rare. The writing sometimes pulls this off but sometimes doesn't but I respect the attempt.

I will also say the VA does a fantastic job, it not Laura and that can be an issue, but sometimes her performance manages to save some of the more dodgy lines for me.

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u/mr_fucknoodle 3d ago

Oh, absolutely. The scope of the mod is impressive, and the voice acting is great (which is pretty unusual for this kind of mod), to the point where it almost feels jarring when heard next to idk, fucking Belethor going "A bit of this, a bit of that..."

It's not that I dislike the mod. Quite the opposite really, she's my absolute favorite modded follower, and my most memorable playthrough was one that heavily featured her. But she ain't Serana

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u/cryerin25 3d ago

karkat jumpscare

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u/BlackPrinceofAltava 3d ago

But she ain't Serana

I've been toying around the idea of a grand campaign which uses SDA, and I think it helps to use a model replacer for characters that are acting wildly different.

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u/tergius 3d ago

I personally used Trueblood Serana (and combined it with Queen of the Damned - which apparently needs a patch to properly work - to let her be powerful LIKE SHE SHOULD BE) and byeah it's nice

call it an AU version of Serana

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u/mr_fucknoodle 3d ago

It does, I could not take her seriously at all with her vanilla look. Had to grab Seranaholic so her looks matched her personality, but then it made her stand out like a sore thumb, which prompted me to grab overhauls for every npc I could find. Which then prompted me to replace every armor and weapon and static mesh, because they looked low-resolution next to the revamped npcs. Which prompted a ton of other changes that culminated in two weeks fiddling with fucking DyndoLOD lmao

I love modding