I was always big fan of player-created content.
So I hope PP will have interface, options, and plugins to support modding community.
Posting this here only for case someone in developing would read it, as making game mod-friendly
and leaving plenty of “loose ends” for modders to use is best to be done during envelopment, not afterwards.
There are games that live on mods, and I believe having this option is never bad idea. Also, modders often create visual upgrade mods, or bugfixes, or various content that can be later used by developers to save lot of time, and resources.
Really freakin’ hoping for strong mod support for gameplay elements. There are so many games out there that I enjoy for maybe forty or a hundred hours but just don’t have the exact things that I want. I was really glad when XCOM2012 and XCOM2 had decent ability to be modded, and really enjoyed the mods for them, and I’m hoping for at least that level of mod support.
I always wonder what actually the player of a mod (not the developer of the mod) wants under “mod support”.
In the new Battletech game, there is no official mod support, no “tools” to mod the game, but so many things are exposed (many of them even needing “only” json-editing) that the mod-makers can do awesome mods, and there are mods which lots of players play more than the base game.
So we, as players playing the mods, do we really need the company to make mod tools instead of making the game? I kind of think what we really should hope for is “design-decisions” to allow “relative easy-access” to lots of things instead. The mod-makers are awesome ppl, if they have access to “enough things” in a good game, they will make mods even if there is no mod-support. (The BT mod-community made mod-loaders so the players can install and “merge” mods more easily, even though it’s not necessary at all, lots of mods being text-file “edits” and such… f.e. you can skip story-missions (tutorials or early, “boring” parts of the game) by editing a few lines in a text-file, but it’s easier to install a mod doing just this instead of the player, right? :D)
Sure, you need passionate players who want to make mods if it needs more effort from the mod-maker than clicking in “tools”, and an existing franchise helps with that a lot (in case of BT), but I think there are enough passionate players for OG X-Com and Mr. Gollop to make the decision arguable.
But of course I can’t know how Snapshot allocates its resources, it’s possible that they have “enough” for awesome full-mod support, I just wish that if there is a need to cut something, it will be not the possibility to mod/change something, but to do that “easily”.
There’s a strong case to be made about the ease of access Steam Workshop provides. I know my way around a computer and have used the Nexus extensively in the past, with some easy to mod games, and others that were not so easy. I don’t mind downloading mods, or even tweaking them myself if needed, but you also have to account for the fact that a fair portion of the player base isn’t that comfortable with a computer and needs something as simple as “click on the workshop, browse for mods, subscribe to the ones you need and enjoy!”
The problem is, there are players not using Steam (like GoG-users, MS-Store users [there will be quite a few, due to the XBox-deal with MS]), and the Steam Workshop usually means Nexus (and similar sites) will have a lower priority, which is a shame. It’s not that horrible when you can still download the mods from the workshop and install it on other platforms, but it was not made for that…
The point is that, for Steam users, that I would expect will be a majority (correct me if I’m wrong ofc), they’ve got everything they need on the game’s page.
Well, my point with thread was not about how easy it will be to mod game.
I too love highly modded games (over 140 mods at once on skyrim)
What it is about is how game mechanics allow tempering and especially adding new stuff.
You see, Skyrim is great example. It is very easy to mod, but, it has fixed systems that cannot be changed.
By this I primary mean skill trees, you can modify them. However, you cant add new ones.
You can sacrefice one and remake it into something completely new, but not without destroying previous.
This can be worked around by making systems like that modular, where you add few “dead” skill trees, invisible normally, but modders can revive them and use them.
Generally I don’t like modded games because usually they just break the balance or look amateurish. However I’ve ended up with more than 30 mods for Xcom2 - mostly because all of them add just one small but important (for me personally) detail, addition, or change. As a result, indeed, I’ve spent in Xcom several more hundres of hours - just because of that.
I’d argue that this is less and less true. Of course, for any moddable game you’ll have a plethora of half baked, low quality mod that will be downloaded once in a blue moon, but usually, the outstanding ones receive praise on forums and communities and raise to the top quite fast.
Most hardcore FiraXcom players won’t play XCOM1 without Long War
You’ve already praised XCOM 2’s modding resources
Darkest Dungeon modder Marvin Seo released new classes mods that were so well balanced and faitfhul to the universe (both thematically and graphically) that RedHook studios invited him to lend a hand on the latest DLC
I think Surviving Mars’ devs released tidbits of contents and extra buildings as mods, without bells and whistles.
I won’t get started on Bethesda games, although in this case what is unbalanced or amateurish is the base game
Btw, I don’t like neither LW1 nor LW2. I see them as overly complicated with some changes I don’t like, and so prefer base versions. The situaion with tiny mods is different though .)
I just want to add my full agreement to this thread: I really and truly believe that adding great community-modding support IS the single BEST thing that the Devs can ever give us, other than the game, itself!
We want it. We need it!
Please please please! Give us good modding support! I promise, it will be fantastic for us, fantastic for you, fantastic for everyone concerned, in a hundred different ways. And, it WILL pay you back, in dividends, for years and years to come!
