MODDERS: Tips for guidance and language use

[xOoxDK]

First off, thank you so much for your ability and effort to making games more immersive and useful, you are doing great work and I'm sure everyone truly appreciates this.

 

I come from a background of producing instruction manuals, so... Now to the meat part of the critique sandwich ;)

 

One thing I notice many have trouble with, is clear and consise instructions that are understandable for the end-user. Don't worry, this is true for engineers and data wranglers in general.

But it takes so little to make the guidance and instructions more clear.

 

Tips:

- Avoid long explanations here on Nexus or in any install.txt files or place them LAST (The // comments in the mod files are fine...)

 

 

- Be specific (ironically this requires a long explanation)

 

"Starfield / data"

is NOT as understandable as

"Documents / MyGames / Starfield / data"

Reason: "Starfield / data" exists in both Documents and your direct install dir.

 

 

- Make instructions step-wise, short and specific

1. Do this

2. Do that

3. Now do this

 

 

- Highlight that people need to take files out of downloaded folders, instead of just copy / pasting the downloaded "data" folder into the other.

(Most of us, not using the mod installers, will be doing it manually, and we will NOT be copying the entire folder structure but only the necessary subfolders.)

 

 

- Does your mod play well with others? Kind of important.

 

 

- Does this imply a specific order the mods should be installed in?

 

 

- Does the order of which the lines are written in StarfieldCustom.ini matter?

 

 

- Leave the long explantions for last, if at all needed.

(I don't need to understand why a certain mod should be installed before another one or how they interact... I honestly don't care :D I just want to know if A or B comes first and where they go specifically. For many, it wont come naturally how these things are done or what folders we move files to.)

 

 

- Please please, if you know, write if your mod makes use or alters the same basic file as other mods.

( Not meaning StarfieldCustom.ini here)

 

 

TO USERS:

- Before downloading and using ANY mod... just snap shot the damn folder structure.

(So you can revert any non-functional mods without having to delete the entire game :D)

 

 

- If it's a small mod, keep the original zip file somewhere

(So you easily can find out what to delete if it doesn't work. (mind mods that operate side by side on the same file :S ) )


BUT REALLY... thank you so much, I don't get coding that much myself, so you are doing stellar work from my point of view, and we or Bethesda really can't be without you. Not joking here... I litterally can't play the game now without mods haha.

Have a great day!!

[fraquar]

 

Leave the long explantions for last, if at all needed.

(I don't need to understand why a certain mod should be installed before another one or how they interact... I honestly don't care :D I just want to know if A or B comes first and where they go specifically. For many, it wont come naturally how these things are done or what folders we move files to.)

 

The tip you should have given is to put that information in a code tag that the user can click if it is pertinent at the very point it is pertinent.

You (and others) can ignore it, but believe me there are plenty of users who really NEED to read that right at that very moment.

 

Why? You bury anything at the end of a document the chances of it getting read become as daunting as finding a needle in a haystack.

See that all the time with mods, where the information is presented, is never read and the mod thread just gets inundated with the very comments that the information addressed attempted to educate them about to prevent the following responses.

 

Mod B broke Mod A!

Dun't Wurk!!!

etc, etc.

[zanity]

Hilarious, just hilarious. No there is NOT any 'magic' method that will make early, pre-official-tool mods anything but hacks that will mostly partial work, and clash with other similar hack mods.

 

Documentation NEVER fixes tech issues. You always know when a technical author is speaking, limited to their own 'specialist' field without a real clue as to the engineering issues at play.

 

No-one should be playing with Starfield mods this early unless they are prepared to do a complete clean re-install of the game if things go wrong, and at worst a clean re-install of Windows. They should know how to install the mods by hand, and have a good understanding of file and folder discipline. No mod documentation can save a normie from the downsides of a bad mod when things go horribly wrong.

 

And as for the suggested doc details in the OP, even when modding advances months later, few mod authors even comprehend the impact of their mod on the mods of others, or why such an outcome may happen. For every alpha modder, there are 1000 enthusiastic but tech skill limited modders, and it has always been thus. The 'best' documentation tends to be when the modder even realises giving insight into how their mod works will be useful to those using the mod. A formulaic approach to documentation leads to automatic filling in of fields with little regard to accuracy or usefulness. This is Documentation Psychology 101.