Constructive Feedback & Suggestions for Collections

[BOSSKONG]

Hello to the NexusMods team and developers. I’ve only released one mod on this platform (and was pleasantly surprised to see it featured on your social media), but I do plan to release more mods for games I enjoy as time goes on, I’m just focused entirely on my mods for FiveM at the moment.

 

I read through your announcement about the future of the platform and as a developer myself, I have some feedback and suggestions for your new collections system that should address concerns on both sides of the table.

 

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!

 

I am firmly in the camp that believes mod authors should have full and complete control over if their content is available for download, and should be able to delete these files at will. I also believe the idea behind your new collections system is a good one that will benefit everyone, done correctly (and I understand that this is not easy, nor will it be perfect).

 

It appears that this initial implementation of collections and your new stance on file deletion targets a “one-and-done” type of system, where the curator uploads the collection file and does not need to touch it from then on because the mods (and their respective versions) it relies on will always be available. In this way, a collection can never break...in theory.

 

A simple game update could have the same effect on a collection that a mod deletion does and render it broken, or entirely useless and is far more likely to be the case for undermining the collection system anyways.

 

We also need to remember something: The people who are capable of putting together quality collections are tech savvy modders! They can handle these situations.

 

Suggestion: Allow mod authors to retain the control over their mods that they’ve always enjoyed. When a collection is uploaded, the system behind-the-scenes should check for the existence of each mod in the collection before any user can download it, and display those that are missing from the platform in some special way.

 

 

Suggestion: Allow collection curators to mark mods that are critical to the entire collection working correctly as ‘important’, and if a mod marked as such is removed from the platform, notify the collection curator so that they can adapt to the situation by updating their collection. Also show this information to potential downloaders of the collection so they can hold off on installing a collection until it is ‘whole’ again.

 

You could also take this one step further and have mods that can be marked ‘unimportant’ within a collection, meaning everything would still work fine without these mods included, in the case that they are deleted. Collection curators know exactly which pieces of the puzzle must be included, and which do not need to be. Allow them to exploit this fact during the creation of a collection, and you streamline the entire system while allowing mod authors to retain control over the availability of their content.

 

 

Suggestion: Whenever a mod is marked as ‘important’ within a collection, add this information to a new panel within mod author’s accounts so they can see which collections are relying on their mod(s), as well as how many downloads they are receiving from those collections being installed by users. This could be a good motivator to keeping mod authors from deleting their mods when they see the level of success collections are bringing to their work.

 

 

Suggestion: Mod Authors should be able to determine which version of their mod is the version that all collections including their mod should use. A simple drop down that asks the author which version of the mod to download when it’s included into a collection should suffice just fine, preventing mod authors from dealing with unnecessary requests from users to push out an update they’ve already completed and uploaded.

 

Of course there will be times when users need to update a mod within a collection, but there’s no way around this. If you download Mod A on one day via a collection, and the next day there’s an update that addresses a critical issue, you’ve gotta just deal with it and update.

 

Yes, there is potential for new updates to mods to cause conflicts with other mods, however this is a price that must be paid and it should be the responsibility of the collection curator to either resolve those conflicts, or adjust the mods included in the collection.

 

By carefully maintaining a quality collection I would argue that collection curators would be much more deserving of any donations they receive, and since you’ve already stated that when a mod author’s work is downloaded via a collection they receive donation points and not the curators, I think everything related to the monetary side of things resolves itself here.

 

 

Suggestion: Whenever an update to a mod causes it to conflict with another mod in a collection, allow the curator to mark mods with ‘mod conflict’ and then allow them to select which mods included in the collection conflict with the mod they’re marking. If this mod is marked as ‘unimportant’ within the collection, skip over that mod when a user downloads that collection.

 

Conflict information should be relayed to all relevant mod authors in some way so they can see the conflicts introduced and potentially begin communicating with each other on how to resolve them so that the entire modding community can benefit from their mods working together seamlessly.

 

If the entire collection is broken due to mod conflicts and one or more of the mods in question are marked as ‘important’, allow the curator to mark the entire collection as ‘broken’ so that it cannot be downloaded by users who would inevitably be confused why the collection isn’t working as advertised. Once the proper updates arrive and everything is working together again, curators can restore the ability for users to download the collection.

 

 

Conclusion: I will probably think of more things as I run through it in my head, but these are my initial thoughts on how more compromises can be made to allow mod authors to retain complete control over their work, and allow collection curators to create and maintain quality mod packs that bring more people into the modding community and get more people enjoying the hobby of modding their favorite games.

 

As much as I know you would like the collection system to be as ‘hands-off’ as possible once curators have put a pack of mods together, the reality is that the only people who will be capable of putting together and maintaining quality collections are tech savvy modders who are more than equipped to handle the dynamic, ever-changing landscape of the mods available for their favorite games, and involving curators and mod authors more directly in keeping them maintained is likely the only way this system will succeed for all parties involved long-term.

 

[showler]

Your post appears to indicate that you haven't kept up on arguments over the past month since everything you suggest has been discussed to death already.

 

Many of your suggestions seem to show that you haven't read what the Nexus expects Collections to be, how they will work and how they will be used since your suggestions would straight up break those functionalities.

 

But rather than re-argue those points I just want to discuss one point. Game updates breaking Collections:

 

1. Many games and many mods are not overly susceptible to breaking by game update. The games that make up the majority of the Nexus (Beth games) are generally only susceptible to breaking if they use the Script Extender and that is because the SE is designed to stop functioning after any game update (for very good reasons, so not something to complain about). Even with the SE, the addition of an Address Library has mitigated much of that problem.

 

2. As games reach their end of support life, the chances of a game update breaking a Collection is reduced nearly to zero even as the game remains popular for modding.

 

3. The larger the Collection the greater the odds that a deleted mod will break the Collection rather than a game update.

 

and most importantly

 

4. The Nexus has no influence and no way to prevent a game update from potentially breaking a Collection. The user can do so, but not Nexus.

 

but

 

The Nexus can prevent mod deletions from breaking a Collection. And they will do so. To imply that the Nexus should not fix the problem they can fix because there is also a problem they can't fix is just silly. It's like saying you shouldn't bother wearing safety equipment at work because you might get hit by lightning on the way home.

[Pickysaurus]

Hi Bosskong,

 

I appreciate you writing this up, however, you're providing feedback on a system we haven't provided full details on yet. Some of what you have said may either be part of the system anyway or simply won't apply.

 

Once the system has been fully announced/launched, then will be a better time to provide feedback about it.

 

For now this is based mostly on speculation.

 

Edit: I'll close this thread so it doesn't get derailed, but feel free to PM me if you have follow-up questions, OP.