STEP Frustration

[merryMalfunctioning]

Has anyone else noticed how unhelpful the STEP forum and nexus page have become? In theory, STEP should offer a guide for how to get Skyrim running well. But it's gotten harder and harder to actually view the instructions. And when I do find them (usually by Googling them directly), they're usually an outdated version. Why keep outdated versions at all?! What good can they possibly serve?

 

The Nexus page for STEP has a whole paragraph just describing how version numbers are assigned, and yet they couldn't spare a single line for a link to the STEP Core instructions. And then the STEP forums don't have anything useful like an INSTRUCTIONS section, or even just something labelled STEP CORE. Or START HERE. The whole thing seems like it exists solely to gratify the people maintaining it, with zero interest in users.

 

The concept of STEP is great; new users would benefit greatly from a guide like that, particularly with a nice unified patch. But I can't imagine any new (or even moderately experienced) Skyrim player being able to derive any benefit whatsoever from it.

 

How did it get like this? Am I just missing something? Is my ADD blinding me to some obvious link or guide?

[Vortec]

 I use this STEP Guy NeoValen, keeps it pretty current

 

http://wiki.step-project.com/User:Neovalen/Skyrim_Revisited_-_Legendary_Edition

[Wesgar]

When I tried to follow the program (only the second time doing so), I had a horrid time.

 

It was walls of text upon half-written explanations. Over three hours spent: reading, downloading, and setting up. Even "tested" after each part... 

 

Needless to say, I've gotten better results simply throwing together various fixes, and tweaks. -- Nothing about it seemed "New User" friendly, and even for someone with modding experience, it was a headache inducing endeavor. 

[merryMalfunctioning]

When I tried to follow the program (only the second time doing so), I had a horrid time.

 

It was walls of text upon half-written explanations. Over three hours spent: reading, downloading, and setting up. Even "tested" after each part... 

 

Needless to say, I've gotten better results simply throwing together various fixes, and tweaks. -- Nothing about it seemed "New User" friendly, and even for someone with modding experience, it was a headache inducing endeavor. 

 

I know, right? I did the same thing. They seem more concerned about version numbers and packages than about providing a clear set of directions that people outside their project can follow.

 

The community NEEDS what they are making; but the community needs it to be much more accessible. It doesn't need archived pages of how STEP used to be. I mean, just try to find a coherent uptodate set of STEP instructions for how to set your INI settings for nice looking shadows. You get half a dozen different versions, each filled with rumor and debate about what the best settings might be.

[Question]

I looked at their mod page on nexus and was confused about what it was. At first they claim to be a guide, then they claim to a mod pack. There are no installation instructions or requirements listed like most mods. There is no summarized listing of mods in the pack with short descriptions, there are mods listed in the credits but its not clear whether thats the full listing of all mods or just crediting authors outside of STEP. But they have these long paragraphs about their history and what they are trying to do. That's cool and all, but sometimes people just want to get the short and sweet version.

 

If you are spending too much time trying to get it to work properly, I think you need to ask yourself if the marginal utility is worth it (basically is the benefit > cost). The game still looks good if you download a decent ENB which needs minimal setting up, some ENB authors even include mostly pre-configured .inis and you just need to change the resolution and graphic adapter in it.

[Wesgar]

I looked at their mod page on nexus and was confused about what it was. At first they claim to be a guide, then they claim to a mod pack. There are no installation instructions or requirements listed like most mods. There is no summarized listing of mods in the pack with short descriptions, there are mods listed in the credits but its not clear whether thats the full listing of all mods or just crediting authors outside of STEP. But they have these long paragraphs about their history and what they are trying to do. That's cool and all, but sometimes people just want to get the short and sweet version.

 

If you are spending too much time trying to get it to work properly, I think you need to ask yourself if the marginal utility is worth it (basically is the benefit > cost). The game still looks good if you download a decent ENB which needs minimal setting up, some ENB authors even include mostly pre-configured .inis and you just need to change the resolution and graphic adapter in it.

 

My game lagged to hell and back after I installed their "mod pack". --- With the lower quality downloads! 

My PC has the specs to use the HD packs, yet I opted for performance... only to be met with horrendous lag and constant CTD's. I'm sure they'd say it was my fault, but the fact of the matter is, their guide isn't as "helpful" as it once was.

[Kimy]

STEP is a pinch of fairly useful information combined with highly subjective opinions sold as facts and a list of mods that could be yet another random person's list of favorite mods. Personally? It's not a bible, don't treat it as such.

[aim4it]

Yea, their guide is trash.  Took about a week of googling to find an obscurely worded document noting that you need to download the mods individually, installing using their 'recommended' settings, then using one of mod packs to reduce esp's.

 

IMHO some of their mod selections violate their chosen premise of lore friendly, unobtrusive, etc, like Kimy said:

 

yet another random person's list of favorite mods.

 

[merryMalfunctioning]

STEP is a pinch of fairly useful information combined with highly subjective opinions sold as facts and a list of mods that could be yet another random person's list of favorite mods. Personally? It's not a bible, don't treat it as such.

Indeed. To use a metaphore from software engineering, STEP is a Cathedral approach to a Bazaar problem.

[Bif_Mandrake]

While I have to agree with statements regarding subjectivity, I'll play the role of the solitary dissenter here.  "Lore-friendliness" itself is a pretty subjective thing, and I suspect if the hardware had been better when Skyrim was released so of the choices now passing as lore would have been very different.  But yeah - the STEP position of keeping it "lore-friendly" gets pretty bizarre at times....

 

Both time's I've used STEP as a basis for my own LO choices, I've had insanely stable and absolutely gorgeous environments.  The shortest it's ever taken me was just over 10 hours not including all the 15 minute to 1/2 hour test runs after installing several mods.  It's a fully-on-fucking-ordeal to go the STEP route.  That said, the gang that maintains the STEP forums are pretty damned helpful if you need to ask for help there as well, especially for things that are outside the STEP mandate.  I'm under the impression that even the STEP "staff" use the mandate as a stable platform to build from.  Many there use ETaC for instance even though you won't find it in the guide.

 

I'm currently running about 95% of Neovalen's STEP based variant (my third Skyrim LO build) with another couple dozen mods of my own choice merged down to about 180 esp's and couldn't be happier with how it looks and runs.  

 

Don't really know what to say about everyone's bad experience with their texts.  Once I figured out how it was organized it made all kinds of sense to me.  But then I'm one who prefers hard copy to screen text, and screen text over youtube for technical instructions.  Text can't really answer questions that haven't been anticipated and the STEP guides with their overly voluminous text covers it better than any other guides I've seen.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nyquil]

If you get to an outdated STEP guide there is a link that sends you to the latest updated one. The instructions are also pretty clear an the whole guide is well organized. I personally have only had good experience with it and it feels pretty simple to use. I must however admit that the Nexus page is really confusing. They just use it to store their patches and some of the optimized textures.

 

I mean if you follow it there is no reason as to why not be able to do it. It is very detailed. I think most issues come when people try to deviate from it. You can absolutely do it. But you have to have then an understanding of what is happening. You cannot skip enbboost, driver config and ini config and go directly to mods. Well and their idea of STEP mandate is interesting. But many people don't want any overhauls new lands and quests. Some want to just enjoy a correctly working visually upgraded skyrim, that is what STEP is for. It is above a simple baseline since it can be taxing.

[Guest]

Having been through the process again very recently after nuking a 4 year old install, I have to broadly agree with Nyguil. As methodical and comprehensive guides go it's the platinum standard, and about as easy to follow as these things can be. Put it this way, an awful lot of new modders would do well to follow STEP as a learning exercise if nothing else.

 

Having said that, the part where you visit the Nexus page to get it's packs and patches needs some work. One goes from having their hand held so tightly that it can feel almost stifling, to being confronted with a poorly laid out page that doesn't jive at all well with the wiki. It's been that way ever since they started using it for more than a placeholder. 

 

It's not a bible, no. As someone who knows her own mind but isn't awesome at organising herself, STEP is invaluable to me as a resource, but I go my own way the minute I've got core up and running.

 

And that's usually when the problems start

 

[hotrack]

 

And that's usually when the problems start

 

And I can't wait for STEP 3.0 ... for [my] problems to re-start! 

[merryMalfunctioning]

Having been through the process again very recently after nuking a 4 year old install, I have to broadly agree with Nyguil. As methodical and comprehensive guides go it's the platinum standard, and about as easy to follow as these things can be. Put it this way, an awful lot of new modders would do well to follow STEP as a learning exercise if nothing else.

 

Having said that, the part where you visit the Nexus page to get it's packs and patches needs some work. One goes from having their hand held so tightly that it can feel almost stifling, to being confronted with a poorly laid out page that doesn't jive at all well with the wiki. It's been that way ever since they started using it for more than a placeholder.

 

It's not a bible, no. As someone who knows her own mind but isn't awesome at organising herself, STEP is invaluable to me as a resource, but I go my own way the minute I've got core up and running.

 

And that's usually when the problems start

The biggest thing for me is the difficulty of getting to the actual GUIDE itself. There is no link from the nexus page, and google rarely seems to find it.

 

Don't get me wrong, I've found it before and gone through it. But everytime I think "hey, I should compare my load order to STEP", I have to repeat the search for the actual guide.

 

Nine times out of ten, I end up at a page describing the STEP versioning system or the STEP philosophy or something.

[MataHari]

Needless to say, I've gotten better results simply throwing together various fixes, and tweaks. -- Nothing about it seemed "New User" friendly, and even for someone with modding experience, it was a headache inducing endeavor. 

Tell me about it.  Someone posted, in a different thread, this video about rebuilding the bashed patch in MO and I watched the video.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Es06MtAZM

 

After I watched the video I was convinced that NEVER using MO for the rest of my life.  It's way too complicated and VERY easy to do somthing wrong, if you're a beginner to modding a game.  I am a fairly experienced mod user and sometimes I got confused when watching the video.

[Kimy]

After I watched the video I was convinced that NEVER using MO for the rest of my life.  It's way too complicated and VERY easy to do somthing wrong, if you're a beginner to modding a game.  I am a fairly experienced mod user and sometimes I got confused when watching the video.

 

 

On the danger that I will have the MO cult jumping at my throat again yelling "BLASPHEMY!!!!!" and demand me getting burnt at the stake, but I cannot understand how a beginner's guide can possibly recommend MO to people completely new to using mods. It's like telling people who never sat behind a wheel to get into a Formula 1 car to learn how to drive. Nobody in their right mind would do that. Beginners need -simple- tools to get started and MO is anything but.

[spoonsinger]

I going to go with STEP is quite useful for finding what an .ini setting may or may not do. Never followed it for an actual load out though. (Mind my Skyrim load out just sort of grew, and I fiddle with bits myself when they break. So that's where I get my, (erm), fun, rather than following a recipe).

 

ps

 

My cooking is the same

 

After I watched the video I was convinced that NEVER using MO for the rest of my life.  It's way too complicated and VERY easy to do somthing wrong, if you're a beginner to modding a game.  I am a fairly experienced mod user and sometimes I got confused when watching the video.

 

 

On the danger that I will have the MO cult jumping at my throat again yelling "BLASPHEMY!!!!!" and demand me getting burnt at the stake, but I cannot understand how a beginner's guide can possibly recommend MO to people completely new to using mods. It's like telling people who never sat behind a wheel to get into a Formula 1 car to learn how to drive. Nobody in their right mind would do that. Beginners need -simple- tools to get started and MO is anything but.

 

 

Heretic! burn at the stake witch!!!, (with a nice sauce).

 

Edit: - a couple of brandy's later. I'm going to take issue with your analogy. It's not your choice of mod organiser which is the problem, (be it MO, Nexus wotsit, or just plain installing stuff willy nilly). People could probably just as well get away with using TES5Edit, a text editor and a PAP compiler. There is a basic misunderstanding to the 'everyday mod user' about what actually is involved when they install a mod and how that mod is interacting with other mods and the original piece of work. I suspect getting them to learn the in's and out's of MO, (or anything else), is the least of a teachers problems. burp
 

[merryMalfunctioning]

I agree with Kimy, Mod Organizer is a lot to take in for a new modder.

 

Extracting mods into the Data directory is a terrible way to do things, but it's also the natural starting point for a new modder, and the difficulties they experience will help them understand WHY Mod Organizer exists and why they need it.

 

That's how I learned anyway...

[Guest]

 

The biggest thing for me is the difficulty of getting to the actual GUIDE itself. There is no link from the nexus page, and google rarely seems to find it.

 

Don't get me wrong, I've found it before and gone through it. But everytime I think "hey, I should compare my load order to STEP", I have to repeat the search for the actual guide.

 

Nine times out of ten, I end up at a page describing the STEP versioning system or the STEP philosophy or something.

 

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=step+project#

 

It's the first link that comes up for me, and right at the top of that page it says  Go straight to the guide: STEP v2.2.9.2

 

 

[MataHari]

I agree with Kimy, Mod Organizer is a lot to take in for a new modder.

 

Extracting mods into the Data directory is a terrible way to do things, but it's also the natural starting point for a new modder, and the difficulties they experience will help them understand WHY Mod Organizer exists and why they need it.

 

That's how I learned anyway...

You know.  The same problem exists for a new mod user when starting to use Wrye Bash for the first time, but Wrye Bash is a little easier to understand than MO.

 

I learned how to use the most basic features about 5-6 years ago when rebuilding my first bashed patch ever, which is the most useful features e.g installing mods in BAIN, ghosting a mod in the Mods tab, rebuilding the bashed patch, and finally understand why BOSS, later LOOT for Skyrim, is so important to use and the reason for that is the bashed tags that the bashed patch needs to use for better mod stability in-game.

 

Now, one can image how difficult it would be a new mod user to first understand the required features in MO then understand how Wrye Bash works on top of that, because MO cannot do certain steps when it comes to modding a game.

 

But Wrye Bash can and have been proven to do its job for almost 10 years now.  Unfortunately, Wrye Bash has a steep learning curve which seems intimidating for a new user.

[Kimy]

I agree with Kimy, Mod Organizer is a lot to take in for a new modder.

 

Extracting mods into the Data directory is a terrible way to do things, but it's also the natural starting point for a new modder, and the difficulties they experience will help them understand WHY Mod Organizer exists and why they need it.

 

That's how I learned anyway...

 

Extracting mods into the Data directory is bad only if you can't cleanly remove them again or don't know in what order to install them. In contrast to what the MO cult says, it doesn't matter at all otherwise. So I'd alter your statement into "MANUALLY extracting mods int the Data directory is a bad idea". Personally I would point a new user to NMM, because it's simple and gets the job done. If they discover a need for more advanced features, they can still switch to MO and/or WyreBash down the road. At least then they have a basic understanding of handling mods and might be able to figure out MO despite its complexity.

To a complete beginner, the STEP-steps must be completely overwhelming, and I can't think of a good reason other than religious ones to try make a newbie use MO -on top of- WyreBash. It's the most complicated way to handle mods known to Tamriel.

[merryMalfunctioning]

Extracting mods into the Data directory is bad only if you can't cleanly remove them again or don't know in what order to install them. In contrast to what the MO cult says, it doesn't matter at all otherwise. So I'd alter your statement into "MANUALLY extracting mods int the Data directory is a bad idea". Personally I would point a new user to NMM, because it's simple and gets the job done. If they discover a need for more advanced features, they can still switch to MO and/or WyreBash down the road. At least then they have a basic understanding of handling mods and might be able to figure out MO despite its complexity.

To a complete beginner, the STEP-steps must be completely overwhelming, and I can't think of a good reason other than religious ones to try make a newbie use MO -on top of- WyreBash. It's the most complicated way to handle mods known to Tamriel.

 

Does NMM have a simpler interface than MO? I haven't used it, I assumed it was pretty similar to MO but with better Nexus integration. But if it's easier to use, then yeah that would be a lot better for novices.

 

MO does have plugins going for it; if STEP were my baby, I think I'd have developed it around an MO plugin that downloads and auto-installs the required mods and patches from Nexus. I mean, the whole point of STEP is to have a consistent set of steps to follow; an algorithm can do that far better than a novice modder.

[Kimy]

 

Extracting mods into the Data directory is bad only if you can't cleanly remove them again or don't know in what order to install them. In contrast to what the MO cult says, it doesn't matter at all otherwise. So I'd alter your statement into "MANUALLY extracting mods int the Data directory is a bad idea". Personally I would point a new user to NMM, because it's simple and gets the job done. If they discover a need for more advanced features, they can still switch to MO and/or WyreBash down the road. At least then they have a basic understanding of handling mods and might be able to figure out MO despite its complexity.

To a complete beginner, the STEP-steps must be completely overwhelming, and I can't think of a good reason other than religious ones to try make a newbie use MO -on top of- WyreBash. It's the most complicated way to handle mods known to Tamriel.

 

Does NMM have a simpler interface than MO? I haven't used it, I assumed it was pretty similar to MO but with better Nexus integration. But if it's easier to use, then yeah that would be a lot better for novices.

 

Personally, I find NMM waaaaaay more accessible than MO. You dump the mod into NMM and click "install". That's it. If a mod requires to overwrite another mod's files, you get a prompt. That's the only time you actually have to think. I would think even a complete newbie can learn NMM basics inside 5 mins. MO...not so much.

 

MO does have plugins going for it; if STEP were my baby, I think I'd have developed it around an MO plugin that downloads and auto-installs the required mods and patches from Nexus. I mean, the whole point of STEP is to have a consistent set of steps to follow; an algorithm can do that far better than a novice modder.

 

That would probably help. A beginner is a person who wants to get stuff running without having to have a lot of background info and knowledge about what they are doing. Trying to teach them the most complicated mod manager around isn't it. That's where (IMHO) STEP fails horribly. It wants to be a beginner's guide, but isn't. If you deal with newbies, try fitting your basic guide on one letter page and make these people have some success, fast. Don't confuse the hell out of them. Then build on the basic guide for more advanced users.

 

 

 

[Morferous]

 

Personally, I find NMM waaaaaay more accessible than MO. You dump the mod into NMM and click "install". That's it. If a mod requires to overwrite another mod's files, you get a prompt. That's the only time you actually have to think. I would think even a complete newbie can learn NMM basics inside 5 mins. MO...not so much.

 

In NMM, several mods can overwrite same files several times. Unless you keep a book, then you will have to remember/learn the installation order for loose files again every time you update mods that are conflicting with each other.

 

This is the part that MO makes easy. You only need to set them all once in the left panel. Then you no longer need to worry about them at all, unless you redo the whole thing.

 

I agree that MO is not for all new users. However, I am following Steam forums closely. As surprising it may be, several new players have actually switched to MO immediately, after finding it's resource management feature more clear for them to understand than invisible conflicts with NMM.

 

Not all, of course.

 

This thread started from STEP. Often those settings are indeed meant for STEP users. Taking them there directly may be misleading. For example this from STEP ENBoost page.

[GLOBAL]
UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics=true
UseDefferedRendering=false

Using those settings for STEP or ENBoost alone is recommended. Using those settings with ENB preset to activate ENBoost is not recommended. STEP ENBoost page does not note this thing, so peoples applying these changes to existing ENB Preset to activate ENBoost need to know themselves if they are needed or not.

 

STEP provides good resources and they do open this in another page, where UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics is explained. Good thing that they do, but I need to ask how many new player runs to google that, when STEP ENBoost page presents that as given?

[yatol]

 

 

Extracting mods into the Data directory is bad only if you can't cleanly remove them again or don't know in what order to install them. In contrast to what the MO cult says, it doesn't matter at all otherwise. So I'd alter your statement into "MANUALLY extracting mods int the Data directory is a bad idea". Personally I would point a new user to NMM, because it's simple and gets the job done. If they discover a need for more advanced features, they can still switch to MO and/or WyreBash down the road. At least then they have a basic understanding of handling mods and might be able to figure out MO despite its complexity.

To a complete beginner, the STEP-steps must be completely overwhelming, and I can't think of a good reason other than religious ones to try make a newbie use MO -on top of- WyreBash. It's the most complicated way to handle mods known to Tamriel.

 

Does NMM have a simpler interface than MO? I haven't used it, I assumed it was pretty similar to MO but with better Nexus integration. But if it's easier to use, then yeah that would be a lot better for novices.

 

Personally, I find NMM waaaaaay more accessible than MO. You dump the mod into NMM and click "install". That's it. If a mod requires to overwrite another mod's files, you get a prompt. That's the only time you actually have to think. I would think even a complete newbie can learn NMM basics inside 5 mins. MO...not so much.

 

 

i click on add mod, that open my dl folder, i click on the mod ant it's installed

don't get how this is less accessible

 

 

what is a newbie? someone that don't really know what he is doing, and fail more

 

 

newbie install mod a, and didn't bother with the readme, he don't have mod b and c required by mod a, and crash before main menu

he make a stupid post, someone tell him he need b and c

but that still don't work because mod b have to be installed before mod a that replace some of its files

 

it's not because newbie have no idea what he is doing he is a dumbass

he may be stuck with nmm because he have no idea what the problem is, and can only hope someone read his post and know what the problem is

but if he use mo, and had the same problem with mod j and k, he may take a look at those flags near the mods folders, and try moving one down

or if he give up, unchecking those mods folders don't have any impact on the rest, nothing was overwritten

 

 

clicking with style on the install button in nmm don't change the fact you have no idea if that mod is compatible with your load order, you are the same as newbie or me, everyone fail

it's a smaller problem if you use mo, it have more tools to find what the problem is, and it allow you to mess safely with anything

you tried enderal? you crash in enderal? i no longer crash (for now, i may find some ctd to fix later)