Why does everything about Skyrim modding need to be so hard? (and please don't just say Bethesda)

[Psalam]

Recently I've come to truly appreciate just how troublesome Skyrim mods are. There has recently been a thread asking about mod packs for instance. This is a genuine issue for a noob. Sure, they can follow a blog (such as Donttouchmethere's) to find all the things that they need in order to get a stable Skyrim game. That involves a large number of steps adding a large number of mods that you don't even play with. It involves adding tools that, in and of themselves, don't enhance your experience (except that they are needed in order to use other mods without crashing). Finally it involves adding the mod that you want to use AND all it's requirements. So, for instance, Paradise Halls Enhanced requires:

Spoiler

Requirements:

• SexLab V1.61+ and its requirements:
• SKSE (V1.7.3)
• SkyUI
• Zaz animation pack V6.11

Those mods, in turn, have requirements. Often those have additional requirements, and so on. Most mod managers (and LOOT) can identify the requirements of a mod. "Why can't they simply download those mods in turn", queries the modding newcomer. So, why can't someone just come to LL download PAHE and have the requirements found and downloaded and the next level of requirements downloaded, etc?

 

When you've accomplished that, you have to struggle with your load order. Often, to get mods to work together properly you need to learn to patch mods (KoolHndLuke recently did a helpful thread discussing and explaining this). Also, to get the looks that you desire you may have to learn the vagaries of using ENB.

 

Next, to make minor tweaks in the looks of your NPC or items you need to learn how to use a host of tools including GIMP, NifSkope and the Creation Kit (whom the kindest person whose used it calls "a little bit glitchy.")

 

If you then opt to make a mod you can learn to become more expert with this multitude of tools.

 

Then, if you want to share the mod you have to learn the precise method for uploading a mod in order to get the results that you already worked so hard to achieve in your own game.

 

I am so reminded of Bobby Kennedy's famous quotation:

Spoiler

Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.

Robert Kennedy

Why can we not find way(s) to make things easier than they are? Are we like the old men who insist that the young go through the hazing process that attended their own youth because that was how it was done?

 

Finally, let me apologize if you feel I should have put this on the Rant Thread. I seriously considered it. However, this question is Skyrim specific (since that is what I know) and I finally chose to make this thread instead.

[Seijin8]

7 minutes ago, Psalam said:

Why can we not find way(s) to make things easier than they are?

In a word: Permissions.

 

Even modders usually don't "own" the materials they are working with.  Someone else does, and they may or may not have explicit permissions for how those things are used.

 

It is the crux of the issue of large mod packs.  Lots of things in there that either lack the permissions to be used that way or have explicit non-permissions in an effort to prevent it.

 

When I published my mod in June it took me almost as many weeks to get all the permissions together as it did to construct the mod itself.

[Mez558]

Because everything you have asked for requires more work. In some cases the owners of the mods that are requirements might not want someone else packaging their work in another mod.

 

But I would say for the most part, it's the extra work.

 

Don't think the modders are pulling their weight? Stop paying. Stop paying for their mods and their support. Trust me, if they're no longer earning money from their work they'll soon come around to your way of thinking...
 

[Seijin8]

23 minutes ago, Mez558 said:

Don't think the modders are pulling their weight? Stop paying. Stop paying for their mods and their support. Trust me, if they're no longer earning money from their work they'll soon come around to your way of thinking...

Uh, only a tiny fraction of modders get paid for their mods.  The vast majority who make assets of the sort that would need to be bundled into a mod pack like Psalam is discussing have never made a penny on their mods.

[Psalam]

It's not just mod packs - although I see the logic of that. Everything about Skyrim modding is difficult. As @Seijin8 has correctly pointed out, collecting permissions for a pack is harder than it has to be. So is making mods, finding information, etc. @Elf Prince pointed out recently in the Rant Thread, getting a straight answer to a simple question can be contentious as well as difficult.

[Grey Cloud]

Modder A would have to keep track of the mods s/he had as requirements to make sure any upgrades or changes to them didn't screw their own mod.

 

By and large, on the whole and generally speaking I agree with most of your points. Most of the modding things are are overly or unnecessarily complicated. A couple of examples: Schlongs. A penis can only increase in length or girth; there are only two parts to it - glans and shaft. Why does it require all those settings in Racemenu?

Hairs. Alright there are several different heads (how different and why?) but why does changing a hairstyle have to be so complicated?

[spoonsinger]

Its almost as if software engineering is something you have to put some effort into to learn.  Won't someone think of the children.

[Mez558]

53 minutes ago, Seijin8 said:

Uh, only a tiny fraction of modders get paid for their mods.  The vast majority who make assets of the sort that would need to be bundled into a mod pack like Psalam is discussing have never made a penny on their mods.

 

If you heard a wooshing sound, it was my point going over your head. Sorry, that was probably my fault. I'll just be blunt instead of using passive aggressive sarcasm, this time.

 

I'm not a modder but I still feel a little aggrieved when someone asks for modders to make it easier for them because reading the install instructions takes too long or going off an finding the requirements and installing those first.

"Why can't I just press this button and it work?"

Yet tools created and shared for free already do so much for us. Mod organisers that install, back up files and indicate if they have missing requirements.

Body Slide and Outfit Studio, any idea how much work would be involved in customising body meshes without these tools?

Or Racemenu/ECE?

 

We really have it so easy, what the modding community has done for content consumers is above and beyond but we want it to be easier because... I don't know.

Perhaps it's just because I'm old and not part of the snowflake generation.

[Psalam]

2 minutes ago, spoonsinger said:

Its almost as if software engineering is something you have to put some effort into to learn.  Won't someone think of the children.

I mean no offense but that sounds exactly like what legislators say about laws that only lawyers understand and then only after judges interpret them. 

[Psalam]

3 minutes ago, Mez558 said:

 

If you heard a wooshing sound, it was my point going over your head. Sorry, that was probably my fault. I'll just be blunt instead of using passive aggressive sarcasm, this time.

 

I'm not a modder but I still feel a little aggrieved when someone asks for modders to make it easier for them because reading the install instructions takes too long or going off an finding the requirements and installing those first.

"Why can't I just press this button and it work?"

Yet tools created and shared for free already do so much for us. Mod organisers that install, back up files and indicate if they have missing requirements.

Body Slide and Outfit Studio, any idea how much work would be involved in customising body meshes without these tools?

Or Racemenu/ECE?

 

We really have it so easy, what the modding community has done for content consumers is above and beyond but we want it to be easier because... I don't know.

Perhaps it's just because I'm old and not part of the snowflake generation.

Your point is well taken. Skyrim is actually one of the easiest games to mod and a tremendous amount of groundwork has been laid by people before us. Nevertheless, because this is better than it could be, does it mean it is as good as it gets? I am also older (you can check my profile - I get senior citizen discounts) but I think "settling" isn't always the best thing to do (although sometimes it is all that can be done).

 

And please, please, be careful of how you characterize people ("snowflake generation"). As Elf Prince was quoted in a post above, it is easy to sidetrack a discussion by simply slipping in a verbal joust that was unnecessary.

[Seijin8]

11 minutes ago, Mez558 said:

If you heard a wooshing sound, it was my point going over your head.

Indeed, and agreed on most points that you laid out.

 

I do think the process could be made simpler if some modders would play nice with others, but as a self-described asshole, I shan't be throwing fingers or pointing rocks.

 

15 minutes ago, spoonsinger said:

Its almost as if software engineering is something you have to put some effort into to learn.

 

11 minutes ago, Psalam said:

I mean no offense but that sounds exactly like what legislators say about laws that only lawyers understand and then only after judges interpret them.

 

Software engineering is no doubt difficult, but making your work comprehensible appears to be a step too far for some.  In fairness though, that may not really be their fault.  As someone who has had to teach high-level skills to beginners, it is very easy to forget about illustrating some basics until someone asks a "stupid" question.  A lesson plan for the day may consist of a critical flaw in overestimating the level of comprehension someone brings to the table.

 

To side with mod-makers on this, many creators do not share a common language and with most code being English-based, it also may give them a completely skewed perspective on what sorts of terms or language a user would understand.

 

Long story short: if mod creators down't always provide the best answers, there may be a slew of completely innocent reasons for it.

 

To backtrack a bit on what Psalam commented on re: the ElfPrince post in the rant thread, I'm sorry, but that boils down to: at least three people gave answers to a problem and some were rude in wanting to make sure the wrong advice wasn't followed.

 

To which I would answer: At least three people tried to help.  By the sound of it, three more than the "ranter" deserved.

[Grey Cloud]

12 minutes ago, Mez558 said:

Perhaps it's just because I'm old and not part of the snowflake generation.

I'm not going to be seeing 60 again any time soon.

 

The fact that a thing is freely available has no relationship to its ease of use or inherent simplicity. On a related note, it is one thing to create a piece of software or mod, however complicated or not, and another to produce some useful documentation.

[Grey Cloud]

15 minutes ago, Seijin8 said:

To backtrack a bit on what Psalam commented on re: the ElfPrince post in the rant thread, I'm sorry, but that boils down to: at least three people gave answers to a problem and some were rude in wanting to make sure the wrong advice wasn't followed.

 

To which I would answer: At least three people tried to help.  By the sound of it, three more than the "ranter" deserved.

You are out of order talking about someone who is not here to defend himself.

Elf Prince is a non-Anglophone.

In the three or so years I have 'known' him, he has always been polite and has always tried to fettle a problem himself before asking for help.

[Seijin8]

6 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

You are out of order talking about someone who is not here to defend himself.

Elf Prince is a non-Anglophone.

In the three or so years I have 'known' him, he has always been polite and has always tried to fettle a problem himself before asking for help.

Great.  Doesn't change shit.

 

Regardless of attitude or background, said individual is complaining about the way in which help was rendered to them.  My gripe isn't with ElfPrince per se, but the entire concept of being upset when people lend assistance in a way you don't agree with.

 

And that concept circles right back to this entire thread.

 

"People aren't helping me the right way." <-- An insufferably selfish sentiment no matter how it is rendered.

[Psalam]

3 minutes ago, Seijin8 said:

Great.  Doesn't change shit.

 

Regardless of attitude or background, said individual is complaining about the way in which help was rendered to them.  My gripe isn't with ElfPrince per se, but the entire concept of being upset when people lend assistance in a way you don't agree with.

 

And that concept circles right back to this entire thread.

 

"People aren't helping me the right way." <-- An insufferably selfish sentiment no matter how it is rendered.

Maybe I'm wrong but I understood Elf Prince to be remarking on the "tone" of the interactions between the people "who were trying to help." I certainly approve of that sentiment. I find that one person calling another person names or categorizing their ideas in a derogatory manner to be useless and offensive, regardless of their intention to help. I hope I can only reflect that as well. 

 

I certainly have no complaint about the help I have received "from those who came before me." That being said, I don't know why anyone can take offense at the suggestion that there might still be a better way.

[Seijin8]

15 minutes ago, Psalam said:

I don't know why anyone can take offense at the suggestion that there might still be a better way.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I wouldn't categorize my reaction to this as "offended", merely that this process (Modding Skyrim for instance) is a lot less difficult than it was five years ago, and a lot more productive for the time invested, as difficult as it may still seem.

 

That is largely because of the efforts of unpaid, underappreciated people who spend a ridiculous amount of their time fielding questions from people that could best be answered as "RTFM" and "PEBCAK".  The restraint of some of these people is astounding, and for the others who are less friendly about it, their response is often entirely understandable.

 

If someone made a mod I really liked, I'd rather they spent their "modding time" refining, improving and expanding their work, rather than retyping part of the description for people, or reorganizing work already done into a form that is more accessible to the lowest common denominators.  Now that isn't to say that all "refinement" and "ease of use improvements" are bad of course, but there's only so far that you can shovel shit uphill.

 

Its probably just a vocal minority (the story of the internet), but the number of mod users who waste people's time typing something into a forum that they should have put into a search engine is unacceptably high IMO.

[Grey Cloud]

11 minutes ago, Psalam said:

 

I certainly have no complaint about the help I have received "from those who came before me." That being said, I don't know why anyone can take offense at the suggestion that there might still be a better way.

Exactly.

 

If anyone wishes to open a 'let's brown-nose modders' thread then they are perfectly at liberty to do so.

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, Seijin8 said:

Its probably just a vocal minority (the story of the internet), but the number of mod users who waste people's time typing something into a forum that they should have put into a search engine is unacceptably high IMO.

And totally irrelevant to this thread IMO.

[GenioMaestro]

The base problem is what do you want.

 

If you only want Campfire you only need the base game...

BUT

If you want Frostfall you need Campfire + SkyUI + SKSE.

If you want Dual Sheath Redux you must add XPMSE.

If you want PCA2 you must add FNIS.

And the cascade can be gigantic. But only because you want that mod.

 

Half of the mods in Nexus only require the base game but other need others mods because you can use the content and the works of others peoples but not include it in your mod.

 

If the mod you want has a cascade of dependencies you are looking for problems.

That's why we always tell the new users: slow, slow, slow... one mod at a time... Read the documentation 3 times... If you make a mistake, come back.

Learn, experiment and modify carefully.

 

Only when you know enough can you solve your own problems.

But at some point, the complexity of the waterfall and the interrelation of the mods can give problems to the most advanced and expert users.

[Fotogen]

It has to be this way. And it is good so. Its the nature of the beast.

 

If there would be no mods, there would be no problems. But "no mod" is boring. We like Skyrim because it has mods, right?

 

Many problems come from the fact that there are options. Like you have CBBE and UNP body for females. Much less complications if only one body type would exist.

 

OK, my point is that your "problem" is that there is a choice.  Its starts with the fact that there is more then zero(0) mods. And things get more complicated when there are compeating mods.

 

Me: Im fine with a bit of chaos as long as I get a choice.

[Grey Cloud]

31 minutes ago, Fotogen said:

OK, my point is that your "problem" is that there is a choice.  Its starts with the fact that there is more then zero(0) mods. And things get more complicated when there are compeating mods.

There is not a necessary connection between the number of mods and the complexity, unnecessary or otherwise, of a particular mod or mods. Yes there is self-inflicted complexity from running, say, 200 mods as opposed to just playing the vanilla game - balancing 10 spinning plates on sticks is more difficult than doing it with one.

[karlpaws]

3 hours ago, Psalam said:

Recently I've come to truly appreciate just how troublesome Skyrim mods are. There has recently been a thread asking about mod packs for instance. This is a genuine issue for a noob.

I'm going to start here.  First off (not speaking to you as much as the prototypical "noob") Skyrim isn't like other games. Mods are not static, unchanging simple things that can be packaged together for your convenience.  Most are in development and also rely on others that are also in development. You cannot package constantly changing mods together and expect to keep up. The mods HAVE to be modular so you can swap out the old with the new and not replace a single mod pack of 15 mods just to update one. You cannot expect someone to maintain a mod pack... well really 25 mod packs, because you want this mod and not that one and someone else wants this one and that one but not the other one.  How often do you want someone updating mod packs? How do you determine what goes into a pack? Skyrim is a buffet restaurant. It does not serve dinners and that is just the reality of it.

3 hours ago, Psalam said:

Those mods, in turn, have requirements. Often those have additional requirements, and so on.

There is a concept in programming of libraries. The same concept is used in other areas, but since it fits here I'll use this model.  If you write a program (and the way the first ones were written) you can write everything that program uses. How to add 1 to 1 and get 2. How to print something on the screen. How to store some information and retrieve it later.  Eventually people realized that doing this for every program was tedious, even if you just copied the lines from the last one. Companies started making sections of code to do common tasks and sometimes sold them so that other companies could buy and package them with their own. Others just said "you need this program installed"... Adobe Flash anyone? Acrobat reader? Java. The Microsoft C++ and Dot Net entries you might see in your Windows Update list. Probably no one remembers Trumpet Winsock from Windows 3.1.

 

Mods are doing the same thing.  In your example of PAHE, do you really want all of SKYUI included in PAHE, and Sexlab, and FNIS?  In the same issue with modpacks, what if you want another mod that also uses Sexlab? What if that mod was "finished" earlier than PAHE was and includes an old version of Sexlab? So, dependencies are both a benefit for you and for the modder, because you only have to download the Sexlab code once and not 5 times, SKUI once and not 50, etc.  It also means you can swap it out for a new version and not wait for PAHE to update and include the new version.

3 hours ago, Psalam said:

Most mod managers (and LOOT) can identify the requirements of a mod. "Why can't they simply download those mods in turn", queries the modding newcomer. So, why can't someone just come to LL download PAHE and have the requirements found and downloaded and the next level of requirements downloaded, etc?

At a technical level, they could. Nexus might be close to doing something like that with its Vortex mod since that can tie into Nexus and tell you if a mod needs to be updated.  That is assuming that the mod's code number doesn't change, mod page doesn't move, modder of the dependency doesn't make a new version of the mod that replaces the old one and Nexus can afford their server fees if people don't see the ads on all of those mod pages as people check back on their favorite mods.

 

That's what just about all of the "why can't I ...?" questions come down to... money.  Volunteers can make mods and manage web sites and do a lot of things, but there are always some tasks done by someone outside of the "scene" that need money for hard goods or non-voluntary services.

3 hours ago, Psalam said:

Why can we not find way(s) to make things easier than they are? Are we like the old men who insist that the young go through the hazing process that attended their own youth because that was how it was done?

 

Here I think we come to the crux of the issue.  I don't know when you started playing games or Elder Scrolls games in particular. I don't know when you became aware of Mod Organizer or the Nexus MOs or any of the rest.  Old or young, everyone starts at some place not realizing what came before and just how high are the shoulders of the giants they stand upon. Others have pointed out that mods have gotten better, modders have more tools that make their creation and production simpler. Games themselves have gotten easier to mod with more options.  When you start from "Hard" (or even Legendary) you can get quite a bit easier and not actually reach "Easy" prompting someone to ask "Why is this so hard?"  You can sometimes point out how hard it was and how easy it is now and be factual, not "uphill, both ways, in the snow, now get off my lawn, whippersnapper" cranky.

 

On the other hand, you said "and don't say Bethesda" but they are part of the problem. As they own the game they have some say over what other people can do and make a profit.  Some people probably could create mods for pay and would if they could they charge for them. As they cannot charge they will do other things they can do for pay and we're left with volunteers and donation seekers (which might even be at risk, depending on how they word the donations) limited more by time than by talent.  I do not know if the Creation Kit is the actual tool the Bethsoft programmers used... I find that somewhat hard to believe. My conspiracy theory is the program is partially as buggy and as prone to crash as it is because they removed or changed something to hide some trade secrets or internal business practices from their competitors.  That tool also hampers development and it and the design decisions Bethsoft made are part and parcel of this whole problem.

 

2 hours ago, Psalam said:

I mean no offense but that sounds exactly like what legislators say about laws that only lawyers understand and then only after judges interpret them. 

I'm going to take issue with this. Law makers have a job, but that job has been corrupted in many countries and the representative systems have morphed into an entire career which was usually not intended by the original founders. The people that now make up our legislative bodies are generally of the law profession and wish to create more work for their own industry, which includes judges, and so they create laws more to create laws than to solve problems. It also diminishes any work if doing so is easy and obvious so many people in many industries make what they do look harder than it is.  Some people writing computer code do this as well in an attempt at job security and I have heard there are contests for creating the most indecipherable but working programs.

 

There are some tasks that are hard and cannot be simplified at the demand of the novice.  You cannot explain quantum physics to anyone and have them understand unless they have enough understanding on some of the underlying physics.  If someone doesn't know what arrays are, data structures, pointers, the difference between longs and ints, why strings can hold numbers but why you cannot (usually) use them to do math, and other programming terms scripting in Skyrim is probably not going to make sense.  Now, you don't need to know all of that to mod, and don't need to know all of that to script since Skyrim's Papyrus is a fairly simplistic system but if you approach Skyrim modding with a "I want a mod" but no understanding, anything that ends up being a technical problem might start going down those rabbit holes and how much can you really demand an unpaid mod creator do for support? I mean, this isn't rocket science or brain surgery, why can't everyone understand it? (/sarc)

 

1 hour ago, Seijin8 said:

Software engineering is no doubt difficult, but making your work comprehensible appears to be a step too far for some.  In fairness though, that may not really be their fault.  As someone who has had to teach high-level skills to beginners, it is very easy to forget about illustrating some basics until someone asks a "stupid" question.  A lesson plan for the day may consist of a critical flaw in overestimating the level of comprehension someone brings to the table.

There is a saying/phrase/truism/whatever that goes "Those who can't do, teach" generally used as a slur against people teaching what they cannot do.  While it is probably used by people who can do against people who cannot and thus get by teaching as a lesser version of actually doing something, there is another truth that you must truly understand something in order to teach it to someone. That seems to be the case for many sports athletes. The best athletes, to whom came the skills to play the game easily, seem to make the worst coaches.  Those who struggled to play understand the struggles of the rookie the most. 

 

There are quite a few people able to make a mod but either through lack of understanding or language or personality have trouble helping someone understand. They also can only teach someone able to learn and some people either through ability or attitude are not able.  At least not through the forum method available here.

 

and after all this I feel I have to say: "thanks to everyone for reading."

 

 

[Mez558]

2 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

I'm not going to be seeing 60 again any time soon.

 

The fact that a thing is freely available has no relationship to its ease of use or inherent simplicity. On a related note, it is one thing to create a piece of software or mod, however complicated or not, and another to produce some useful documentation.

 

No it doesn't but I would say that the responsibility of the creator of said freebie to make it easy for someone that found reading and following the instructions to much like hard work is basically zero. If he was selling the software, whatever it was, then of course he would want it to be easy to use or no one would buy it.

 

Maybe I'm just not as altruistic as others.

 

I've not come across anything without useful documentation, well maybe JFF but then I think that was because the author wasn't sure what half of the settings did.
I've installed a few mods where I didn't bother reading the instructions and had to roll back to a some earlier saves.

 

 

 

 

[Mez558]

13 minutes ago, karlpaws said:

 

There is a saying/phrase/truism/whatever that goes "Those who can't do, teach" generally used as a slur against people teaching what they cannot do.

 

 

Apropos of nothing, that was a favourite of my Kick Boxing instructor, back in the 90's. "Those who can, do. Those who can't, Teach." He used this to describe himself and the inevitable effect of age on a fighter.
His other favourite was "The older I get, the better I was." Which I'm getting to understand more with age. Scarily (for me, at least) I am older now than he was when I was training with him.

[Seijin8]

32 minutes ago, karlpaws said:

The best athletes, to whom came the skills to play the game easily, seem to make the worst coaches.

Warning: Digression.

 

This is absolutely true.  The reason has little to do with this discussion though, as any type of engineering is an inherently intellectual pursuit, and should be explainable with some level of logic and clarity.  (In the case of athletes, it is because the skills are often fully autonomous of the very slow rational thought process.  When asked "how", they have to unpack a completely fictionalized version of what their thinking mind believed the scenery was while it was stuffed in the trunk.  This often leads to them regurgitating half-remembered stuff their coaches told them that in many cases the athlete doesn't even adhere to.)

 

On the other hand, maybe there are savant coders who "just do it" and produce something useful.