The video game has been modified

Yes, with 1800+ Mods, the game has changed quite a lot. I will try to describe, in the most comprehensive manner, what exactly the list is and what goal it's trying to achieve. I will start with what the list isn't.

What the list isn't

This is not a list for thieves, pickpockets, or assassins. Such archetypes and skill trees have been nerfed. Why? I simply don't enjoy such builds and it is to discourage you from playing these types of builds. RAID is set to high on both interiors and exteriors; furthermore, no additional tools for assassins are added, unlike QWEST! which has Sneak Tools. The quest mods, combat, magic and gameplay overhauls are chosen for warriors, paladins, mages, and wizards.

This is not a list for Legacy of the Dragonborn (LotD) and item hoarders. LotD is not in simply because I do not like how it forces you to become an item hoarder. I made QWEST! for the ultimate LotD experience, and now I'm making the complete opposite. LotD also displays the lowest quality armor and weapons mods in my opinion (Looking at you, Immersive Armors and Immersive Weapons). To compensate that lack, I've handplaced hundreds of items throughout the world such as spell tomes, weapons or gave unique NPCs unique gear like in From Software's games. You're free from hoarding random items, and you have cool player homes with room for displaying what you want, not what LotD deemed worthy. This is the kind of behavior I hope to avoid. Even the Dev Aveza, my favourite part of LotD, is in, without being held back.

What the list is

Gameplay - Combat | Engarde

The main combat overhaul of Aldrnari is Engarde - "Fixing Skyrim's melee combat one tweak at a time".

It is one of the most diverse combat overhauls on Nexus and a really fun one when mastered. Here I will describe a few core mechanics, but since it has so many mechanics, I highly suggest reading and watching videos on it (or don't and figure out techniques and mechanics by yourself, at the price of a lot of deaths).

Unique Mechanics:

Stamina Management: It is more similar to the Dark Souls Style; two or three slashes will deplete your full stamina and you wont be able to attack anymore, you will need to back off (and use the walk button) to regenerate a part of it. Power Attacks and blocking also depletes it.
Power Attacks: It is bound to a third button, detached from your usual click, and it has a cooldown. No more power attack spam with a warhammer to kill every bandit.
Off-hand: By default, if you have a Sword and a spell on your off-hand, using your left hand key will block and not use the spell. This allows dual wield blocking (which is needed in Aldrnari). To use the spell in your off-hand, press shift (by default) and your left hand key at the same time.
Enemies actually use stamina, so if they spam power attacks, play defensively and wait for the moment to strike!
Weapons have different ranges depending on what type they are.
Armors have resistances based on their keywords. If you use a dagger against steel armor, it obviously won't penetrate the steel. The same system applies to you, though, so play smart!
Dodging is extremely important, the default key is C (when following my MCM Setup) and will only work when weapons are drawn. The invincibility frames, also known as iFrames, are generous, and it'll get you out of trouble a lot.

Gameplay - Combat | Other Combat Overhauls

The list doesn't only ship with Engarde! Other mods come to make an ever more Dark Souls-inspired combat experience;

ZUPA forces 3rd person and plays an animation when drinking a potion, like how there's an animation for Estus in Dark Souls.
Smart Optimal Salves is an add-on to ZUPA, so you don't have to go in your inventory to drink a potion!
zxlice BackStab and Parry is self-explanatory! Backstabs and attacks of opportunity after succesful blocks... A really neat add-on.
Heartbreaker allows you to rip people's hearts straight from their chest. Metal, isn't it?
SmoothCam and True Directional Movement for the camera control, so it's actually usable in 3rd person.

Gameplay - Combat | Enemies

Enemies will be drastically changed; I have made a very thorough merge of many popular enemy overhauls, completely patched to work together. We are talking about mods like:

Skyrim Revamped - Complete Enemies Overhaul which buffs almost all enemies in the game.
Briraka's Draugr Overhaul and Draugr Upgrades and Improvements which makes named draugr more unique and brings varieties like fire draugr to the game.
OBIS the unavoidable bandits overhaul, with its Patrols addon.
Better Vampires NPCs with Ubervamps which makes them an actual threat. I also added my own, unique, non available on nexus mod; Sovn's Ebony Vampires - Porting Requiem Enemies to Vanilla Skyrim.
Heritage which brings more enemy variants to almost all classes.
High Level Enemies which, instead of the usual more variants, adds level 60+ enemies into leveled lists.
Real Bosses because Skyrim Revamped does not touch bosses, for some reason, so this overhauls those to make sure the minions aren't stronger than the actual boss.
SkyTEST for animals only so they are an actual threat passed level 5.
Dragon War and its Variants add-on are what brings diversity and difficulty to Dragons so every encounter is a new challenge.
My very own Sovn's Enchanted Spheres - Porting Requiem Enemies to Vanilla Skyrim to bring some actual bosses in Dwarven ruins.
A set of 30+ Mihail Mods, which adds new enemies that dot the landscape. You can find them in the modlist under "MM -".
Skyrim Immersive Creatures is now fixed, implementing a ton of new enemies which will obviously help a lot bringing diversity to the world!

Those are only the most prominent overhauls present. The above list isn't exhaustive.

"Wow Sovn, this is some madness! How am I supposed to survive?" Well listen here buddy, the Encounter Zones are handmade.

That's right, I heavily modified Open World Loot's encounter zones. For the first couple levels early on, you will want to fight bandits. They should be as bad at combat as you. As you progress through doing Missives or normal quests due to Experience, you will get more enemies with more perks, and you will be able to do more and more stuff.

More on that in the next chapter of this guide.

Gameplay - Leveling

Bandits are the best enemy in the beginning; they barely know how to fight (except their leaders) and aren't that organized. As you progress, you should be able to tackle stronger enemies such as draugr, forsworn, mages, dwarven constructions, dragons, and finally vampires and dragon priests.

Vampires are deceptively strong, do not fight them early, you will get murdered. Why? Because the game is semi-leveled; lemme explain:

Normal enemies still scale with you, they start at lower levels and have a lot of variants between level 1 and 90.
Bosses are higher level by default, between level 15 and 250 (that includes quest mods). There are a lot of static bosses that are straight up god-like, such as Master Vampires and Dragon Priests.
All enemies get perks depending on their level. A level 1 enemy has 1 perk and a level 60 enemy has 60 perks.

"But how do you get to the higher levels yourself? How do you even train your combat skills if everyone kills you" - I am glad you asked! Let me introduce you to the 2 core mods for Player leveling:

Experience
Static Skill Leveling - Experience Mod Add-on

You will level up by discovering places, killing any enemy, and doing quests. Your stats do not influence your leveling at all, that is Experience Here is what the add-on changes:Whenever you sleep, you will be able to allocate skill points in the skills you wish to improve on!. Only the first time you sleep, after you've leveled up and added your Stamina/Health/Magic bonus, that is why Campfire is in (it also uses a bonfire, neat isn't it?).

But that isn't all there is to help you on your quest to becoming a god among men. Let's talk about the main overhauls.

Gameplay - Main Overhauls | Perks, Races, Standing Stones, Magic, Religion and Alchemy

So I mostly play with EnaiRim, especially the full overhauls, and that isn't going to change too much. Lemme show you:

Ordinator for main perks.
Growl for werewolf perks.
Sacrosanct for vampire perks.

They have been choosen because they enable many different playstyles and also make you very powerful. Remember, we're not trying to nerf the player, just buff the enemies.

Palladium Racials

One of the deviations from main EnaiRim. Why? Because it allows both NPCs and the Player to use its passive effects, and it has parts of Imperious along with parts of other race overhauls. It will also bring a good diversity of potential builds.

Andromeda

Good old Andromeda; still as OP as the old days!

Odin for vanilla spells.
Arcanum and Triumvirate for added spells.
Forgotten Magic Redone for reward spells. (more info below)
Forceful Tongue for shouts.
Reliquary of Myth for artifact enchantments.
Challenging Spell Learning for spell learning.

I really wanted a certain spell that loots bodies around you from Odin, so it's how this one got chosen over Mysticism. Many have suggested Arcanum in my old list, so I'm giving it a chance here. Trust me, there's more than enough spells for any type of mage with this setup, so no need for Apocalypse or similar large package mods! Forgotten Magic Redone's tomes have been handplaced throughout the world, quest mods included, so they're rewarded at completion of quests and key moments in the game. Let's be honest, that mod's spells are absolutely OP, and they're supposed to be lost, so why would a merchant sell them in the Bannered Mare? A notes with hints on where to get them lies on a bench where knowledge is gathered within Skyrim. Triumvirate just makes sense, due to some spells fitting the atmosphere.

Forceful Tongue is used to overhaul Shouts as I've never really gotten into Thunderchild, so I wanted something I'd actually use. In the total opposite mindset, Reliquary of Myth is used because it simply is so much more fun than Zim's in my opinion.

As for Challenging Spell Learning, that's because eating books sucks and is too simple. This mod will trigger a sort of "ritual" where your magicka will be drained for 10 seconds and if it doesn't reach zero, you learn the spell. The strength of the drain depend on the level of the spell, it's mana cost, and your enchantments. Failing the ritual gives you a temporary debuff.

Wintersun

Provides quite a few deities to follow; to make your character even stronger than it already is.

Apothecary

I have sworn to never use kryptopyr's CACO ever again. This overhaul does exactly what it needs to do and is actually not a pain to patch. This is why it has been chosen. We use both the Main mod and it's Food addon!

You have all the tools to conquer the world thanks to the absurd strength and overpowered items, but those tools are also available to your enemies which will be forever challenging.

Now that the bulk of the gameplay has been covered, I will continue on the atmosphere of the list.

Gameplay - Less known available tools.

The main overhauls are what define most of your strenght; but a lot has been added on the side so you can clutch boss fights with a well prepared arsenal.

ScrollScribe SE - A Scroll Crafting Mod

You will very quickly notice how almost every bandit has access to magic.. sound annoying right? Especially since magic is quite overpowered in this list. Fear not, you have also access to very strong spells, that only get stronger, despite your lack of mana!

Welcome to Scrollscribe, simply go to an inn and use the power in your magic tab to see how you can craft scrolls! Just requires paper and soul gem dust!