Making JKs Cities LITE: What would you like me to keep/remove?

So this is a project I have been mentioning for a little while in the odd comment here and there to a few people who mentioned a want for it, however now I have officially started work on it and more importantly received permission from JKromal to redistribute it on my own page on the nexus. I started this project because I saw way too many people sitting into one of two groups when it came to these mods, either not using it because of the performance hit, or using it for small parts like the skyforge despite the performance hit, and I wanted to open the mod up to more people.

Unfortunately, just as this happened I had a trauma happen in my personal life and as such had to take a bit of a break from modding, and my motivation took a bit of a hit. However, I set myself a one month deadline to get this mods out (October 10th) and that's what I'm planning to stick too provided nothing else gets in my way.

For this purpose I'd like to see some feedback about what people would like to see kept or removed from the five main cities, so that I have something to work on while I get my mojo back and then can rely on my own creativity to finish the job. I have already mostly completed two of the cities and started on another, so you can find details about the project in general and what I have already done down below for you all to use as inspiration for feedback. Even though Whiterun and Markarth are effectively finished now, that doesn't mean I don't still want feedback for them, either based on what I mention below or just general feedback like the other cities.

All feedback will be welcomed and considered. :)

General Goals:

• Mod Compatibility: Will be compatible with both the full and the JKs version of Dawn of Skyrim. Should be fully compatible with Immersive Citizens as I will not be editing ANY navmeshes (which is the reason why I am only doing the cities at the moment, not the towns. Once I finish these I will be taking a look at the towns, and the two more complicated cities, as far as navmeshing and probably getting in touch with the author of Immersive Citizens about compatibility).

• Light weight: I've removed a lot of the decorations, and even for the decorations that are needed for style, cut back on them where possible so the style remains but the loading is much lighter. Initial tests, nothing definite, should be half of the performance cost of the originals. (Up to 48 fps from 35 with all my texture mods enabled at the Whiterun gate)

• Maintains consistency: All of the city edits will try and maintain the core and most interesting features from each of the cities , while also maintaining a consistent style between all the cities so they don't look out of place either in a vanilla game or compared to each other.

Whiterun:

• Skyforge has been copied over in its entirety, bar the masses of vines which I removed for performance and a few loose decorations that caused compatibility clipping

• Flora and other decorations around Dragonsreach have been kept but again, lightened and slightly altered for performance and compatibility. Flora in general was drastically reduced, especially ivy, which alone helped performance a lot.

• The cover on the well in the center of the market place has been retained but its ivy removed, and you can still find fireflies there.

• Copied over the areas out the back of Arcadia's Cauldron, the garden (only the one near her shop, not the second one from v1.1 of the original), and Belethors, the protected area, as they helped make this 'trade capital' seem like it has more stock and market. Did NOT carry over the animal pen at the back of Bannered Mare as it was much more out the way and less likely to be seen and also much more performance heavy comparatively. The decorations on the walls and pillars of the blacksmith have also been kept.

• Deathbells have been kept, but reduced, around the Hall of the Dead, and will be a theme between all the cities. Many other plant decorations removed.

• The flags and archway decorations have been kept because I deemed them essential to the style of the city overhaul. The wagon in the center of the road when you enter the main gate has been removed however for compatibility.

• Most of the walls around various houses and landings have been removed because they were a big performance hit in exchange for little stylistic importance. The little garden between the houses, temple and hall of the dead was also removed for a similar reason.

• Personal edit: The trees behind the statue of Talos have been aligned to be more symmetrical, as if purposefully planted, rather then two on one side which make it look more 'natural' which seemed a little out of place (and also annoyed the hell out of my pattern loving mind)

Markarth:

• The plants and decorations in the river had been DRASTICALLY reduced. The massive vines covering the path and the new archway have been removed and the plants are now restricted to the water. It looks as if my version was twenty years before JKs for comparison, so the style is still there, but no long in the way performance or navigation wise.

• Decorations outside shop and house fronts have been kept, but a few minor objects have been removed that you aren't likely to notice which are subtly helping performance. Decorations over the water while walking towards the keep have also been kept but once again improved in performance.

• I haven't carried over the edits to the front of the temple to maintain Dawn of compatibility, however I will find something nice to put there for those who don't want to run both mods. (I considered including scripts to deactivate certain objects from Dawn of if it was detected, but I don't want that in this initial release, so maybe later)

• The new roof over the blacksmith area was copied over. If you run dawn of a single flag will clip with a dwemer automation head decoration here, but that should be the only conflict in this city and its a tiny one. Both water wheels have also been kept.

Riften:

• Of course I am keeping the rooftop paths although I'm fully expecting to miss one of them because they are made up of so many tiny things put together. I MAY (big maybe) do a version without these for people who want the performance and are playing a non thief character.

• The garden in the graveyard has been maintained although I removed a lot of the plants where I could and also tried to make it look good for both vanilla plant and SFO users. The other graveyard decorations have also been maintained. The mini garden out the front of Mistveil keep is also carried over, but in a reduced state.

• I plan on keeping the functional door in that area as well, once I figure out how that all works (I'm making a new esp, not editing the old ones, its easier), so that will be there as well for convenience.

• Keeping the cranes, although editing the decorations around them for performance and also removing the steps to them to remove clipping thats visible when on the lower part of the city

• Some of the market decorations will be kept, although few, and ones that get in the way, like the crates in front of the place iNeed places a water bucket, will be removed for compatibility.

• The flags all around the lower level are being removed. Not only will this help performance a lot, and look better when combined with Dawn of, the flags to me always seemed a bit too bright and clean for the warrens-like area of the city,

Solitude:

• Removing the watch towers. Sorry but as far as I know there is no way to keep them without extensive navmesh edits, and they also never made sense to me, watch towers at the BACK of the city. However, I do recognize they did add a huge amount of style to the city, so I may reference them in some way or turn them into stripped out towers you can't access etc. Depends on feedback.

• Bards college and blue palace decorations will be kept but stripped down, as always. Same with the graveyard and the entrance way.

• I'll do my best to keep the alleyways, but again, navmeshing issues.

Windhelm:

• All I have to say is I'm not looking forward to this one. I have no plans, no ideas, just a lot of pain as I look at how complex it is. XD