Discussion: Will Starfield Have Good Modding Support?

[tonicmole]

Starfield was not designed with mods in mind. They've altered several core concepts which have greatly increased the chances of mods being broken with every update. Also, the game simply isn't very popular. Those things combined pretty much confirm that Starfield will not have the same amount of support as Fallout 4, or Skyrim. Not even close. Now, whether Creation Kit will help? A little, but keep in mind, again, mod authors need to be playing this game to mod it. Starfield currently has 1/20th the amount of players as Fallout 4 and 1/6th the amount as Skyrim. To foster a modding community Bethesda would need to make dramatic improvements to their game to bring back players, all the while fixing it's file structure problems so it doesn't break mods every time they update it...or break itself for that matter. 

[HeyYou]

6 hours ago, tonicmole said:

Starfield was not designed with mods in mind. They've altered several core concepts which have greatly increased the chances of mods being broken with every update. Also, the game simply isn't very popular. Those things combined pretty much confirm that Starfield will not have the same amount of support as Fallout 4, or Skyrim. Not even close. Now, whether Creation Kit will help? A little, but keep in mind, again, mod authors need to be playing this game to mod it. Starfield currently has 1/20th the amount of players as Fallout 4 and 1/6th the amount as Skyrim. To foster a modding community Bethesda would need to make dramatic improvements to their game to bring back players, all the while fixing it's file structure problems so it doesn't break mods every time they update it...or break itself for that matter. 

The current patch does address a fair few complaints about the game. Will it be enough? Probably not. I think I significant percentage of folks that don't like the game, blame it mostly on the sheer number of loading screens.... Something that should have been expected, but, peoples expectations, however uniformed, leaned more towards a 'space sim'.... Even though Todd specifically stated it was NOT.

There are already a significant number of mods for the game, it is currently number 12 of over 2000 games on Nexus, by mod count..... And that is even before the CK is out.

Yep, the latest patch broke pretty much any mod that added assets. What possessed beth to do that, is a mystery to me. I can't think of any good reason for it...... but, as mods still aren't 'officially' supported.... I guess we can't complain too much. Not like beth hasn't broken mods before.....

In the end, only time will tell. I know "I" enjoy the game.... and I am most certainly NOT alone in that. :D

[TheFallofApril]

For me Starfield was the disappointment of 2023.

But: the last update was the first time since launch that Bethesda gave everyone the impression that they are still alive and working on the game. The updates actually made a difference and many players came back. Starfield has way more players right now than other hyped games like Dragon´s Dogma 2 or Enshrouded, games that were released this year. 

The number of mods for Starfield is amazing for a "game". But not great for a Bethesda game. So I agree with Tonicmole here, Starfield is not in the same league with this two games and it most likely never will.

 

[HeyYou]

6 hours ago, TheFallofApril said:

For me Starfield was the disappointment of 2023.

But: the last update was the first time since launch that Bethesda gave everyone the impression that they are still alive and working on the game. The updates actually made a difference and many players came back. Starfield has way more players right now than other hyped games like Dragon´s Dogma 2 or Enshrouded, games that were released this year. 

The number of mods for Starfield is amazing for a "game". But not great for a Bethesda game. So I agree with Tonicmole here, Starfield is not in the same league with this two games and it most likely never will.

 

Modding tools for starfield haven't been released yet either though. When those come, I fully expect modding for SF to EXPLODE.

[ghostmaker00]

On 5/21/2024 at 8:26 AM, TheFallofApril said:

For me Starfield was the disappointment of 2023.

But: the last update was the first time since launch that Bethesda gave everyone the impression that they are still alive and working on the game. The updates actually made a difference and many players came back. Starfield has way more players right now than other hyped games like Dragon´s Dogma 2 or Enshrouded, games that were released this year. 

The number of mods for Starfield is amazing for a "game". But not great for a Bethesda game. So I agree with Tonicmole here, Starfield is not in the same league with this two games and it most likely never will.

 

jeeez I feel like I am in the hell of short term memory people. People said that when Oblivion launched, People said that when Skyrim launched. People said that when Fallout 4 launched. *Yawn*

you know people always seem to slag something that it will never reaches the heights of its precedecessor and then conveniently forget that they said anything of the sort when it equals or surpasses. I am petty and then mock them years later because I am cursed with a perverse affliction of finding exactly this and mocking the purveyors of said thinking.   I have mocked BSG fans, Doctor Who fans, Star Trek OS fans, Morrowind fans, Fallout 3 fans, Oblivion fans, and so on. so I have you on my list now and will mock you probabnly in 3 years.

[LarannKiar]

On 5/19/2024 at 5:40 AM, HeyYou said:

In the end, only time will tell. I know "I" enjoy the game.... and I am most certainly NOT alone in that.

You're alone with this. I still release mods from time to time for Starfield.  

 

In reply to the original post/topic, in March when there was a discussion about the upcoming CK I said:

Quote

Should be updated for the new data structures but unless BGS has really high hopes from the modder community to make Starfield more popular it won't come with "Next-Gen" features.. (Though somehow they made all the vanilla ships in their development kit so the CK should have some kind of Ship Builder).

 

I didn't expect to hear this statement yesterday (by Tom Mustaine, External Projects & Creations Director), followed by an expression of agreement by everyone (headshaking at the same time).

Considering the video features some of the verified Creations authors and the dev kit is even bundled with Visual Studio Code extension for Papyrus and Wwise Audio environment, they unlikely to want Starfield's potential go to waste which is good news (for those who still played the game certainly but hopefully for those too who stopped playing months ago).

As for the Ship Editor, turns out the one we've been having ingame is the basically the same they've been using to make ships all along.  

[dldrzz000]

Bad news, guys. The official plugin still needs Havok content tools 2019.2.r1 installation. Unless most modders have access to those SDK tools, modding for the game is mostly dead.