Mod Browsing Overhaul Discussion

[Morkblah]

To echo a lot of people here, I'm less than a fan of the new UI layout or search window; I'd much rather the old UI was kept as much as possible on top of your new backend improvements. If the old wouldn't work with your new systems/framework for whatever reason, at least keep the general style of it.

The best way I can describe my experience with the new UI is to say that it feels like someone has smeared vaseline over the main mod page, objects on it aren't all clearly defined or distinct from each other, sections are almost unnecessarily large overall, and I miss the colours that were present before, as they immediately drew the eye to important/relevant information. The "Popular Collections" section might be nice for other people, but it's entirely irrelevant to me, so a function to disable it (or other elements) would be really nice to have. Not required at all though, as people like me who don't like it will find other ways to hide it.

The mod browsing page is a mixed bag, with the filters being the least objectionable. Making the filters a hideable sidebar instead of a dropdown seems like neither an up- nor downgrade, again I prefer the old dropdown, but the new is completely fine imo. I don't know how popular this is, but I prefer the tiles for the mods to be smaller, and while vertical empty space irks me quite a bit, I have less problem if it's horizontal; thus, if the tiles were just a smidgen smaller or there was one less tile per row, the browsing wouldn't really be any different from old, apart from already-stated colouring issues. The missing time range feature would be really nice to have back.

The mod pages themselves haven't really changed much yet, from what I can tell, apart from becoming darker and breaking the visuals of some mods (can't remember which honestly), but that could be because of the author and, as such, out of your hands. There are, however, some weird things happening with the background colours of the mod pages:

Spoiler

It seems to depend on the banner's colour scheme, but what is that line in the middle? Is that normal, intended, or is it because of some extensions I'm running?

I honestly can't remember if that was there before the update, if it was, please disregard this point. Just please don't put the mod page through a similar update, it really doesn't need it, the colouring changes are enough.

I'll say nothing more about the search feature than that it needs improvement, which I understand you're already working on. Oh, one more thing: please make the "Mods" tab the default, or at least a preference to change it.

I understand you (Nexusmods) have poured a lot of time and resources into this update and are not going to change the course you're on right now, but I do think you're moving the wrong direction with this UI change; the old was distinct, this new one feels just like every other website redesign in recent years: modern, sleek and soulless. Yes, there is a lot of people outright dismissing this update, I was one of them during the beta (I took one look at the beta and opted out, so I guess I'm part of the problem), but also a lot of helpful, constructive criticism here. You need but listen.

The way I see it, people like me who don't like this update have two options:

1. Begrudgingly accept that this is how the site will look from this point on while grumbling unhappily about it until we don't notice the problems any more (honestly, the thing I'm expecting for you to bank on), or
2. Go to another mod hosting site, however they tend to be smaller, more specialised on a few games, have less/worse features, or all of the above.
3. Or the secret, third ending: leave and make their own mod hosting site, with blackjack, and hookers! Not probable in most cases, and even less likely to be profitable in the long run.

Yes, right now there are a lot of outbursts, but not always unfounded, from the loud minority who found this update not to their tastes. The rest will either like it, suffer in silence or leave. This update won't be the end of Nexusmods, just as the "Modpocalypse" wasn't, but it will drastically downgrade the experience of users like me. I highly doubt you'll see any notable downturn in usage because of the update, but I still wish you'd take the design back a few steps toward what you had before.

Thank you for still maintaining this site, it's invaluable when modding most games, despite some of your decisions through the years. I'll still use the site, and as they say, "this, too, shall pass", and I do believe that.

TL;DR: Rambling. The new UI is a mess to me and many others, people can be arses about things that do not matter in the grand scheme of things, I do not expect anything to meaningfully change for the better from here on.

[HadToRegister]

32 minutes ago, ModEnjoyer52 said:

You've modded your games. You probably built your PC. You've even modded the mod manager by now. But... there's one they fear, the Browserkiin.

To mod the Nexus:
Install Stylus extension for Firefox (not sure about other browsers like Chrome)
Click Plus icon in its dashboard and copy paste all this inside: https://github.com/LummoxJR/Nexusmods-style-fixes/blob/main/nexusmods-fixes.css
Credit to LummoxJR.

 

Can confirm this works in the BRAVE Browser, because it's based on the Chrome Engine.
For people using BRAVE, Use STYLUS as recommended.

Do NOT use “STYLISH”, it's been compromised.

[haurora]

51 minutes ago, Yolstrun said:

I would like to reiterate this again, is only for the Game Home Page. The Game Listing Page(SSE New) (SSE Old) and Mods Listing Page are actually a bit of an improvement compared to the old drop down 'Refine Search' box in my opinion.

Now I cannot speak for everyone but I'd assume most of the outrage here is for the Game Home Page.

I don't agree with that. On old UI filters were simply in a box. One click on the banner and all filters appears. Easy. 

Now you need to scroll down to see them all. And some filters are really weirds. Like this "Show only updated mods". From what I understand it shows mods that have got at least one update since release. It's kinda useless. If I could set a time range that would be great. But as it is it's pretty much useless.

And I know it will be added back but for now we don't have time range filter. Also when you search something why is it showing me other games on nexusmods while I'm IN a game page. There is "Skyrim Special Edition" in the search bar. Why are they showing me other games BEFORE collections ? It's not relevant at all. 

[kevuk85]

Legend!

[WileCoyote68]

3 hours ago, hdi83252 said:

I bet if all of you "premium" users complaining about the UI cancelled your plan, nexus would be forced to act, but we all know you won't. You'll just whine a little and in the end accept it.

Pouring oil on the fire is a particularly intelligent approach. If you have nothing valuable to say, please just keep quiet

[CabbageHandler]

I just feel the need to say that the new style looks like ASS. Please add an option to undo every change that was made so half my browser isn't filled with wasted space.

[kevuk85]

1 hour ago, Yolstrun said:

 

  

 

 

Best you can do is remove the .../games... section of the URL for your game. 
https://www.nexusmods.com/games/skyrimspecialedition is the new
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition is the old.

 

Legend!

[Bellarosa12]

Give us an option to opt out of this lay out. This new site lay out is clunky, laggy, nonintuitive, and most of all a genuine confusing mess that is hard to navigate and find what is being searched for. If you're going to change something, you have to ease into it over time with small changes, not instantly just change every single thing about the layout all at once.

[CW001]

Genuinely a downgrade in usability & clarity in basically every way, somehow. At the very least rename the Trending & Popular options for mods on the game page back to "Popular" and "Top (period)"or something. Even from the most basic UX perspective, what's the difference between something that's trending and something that's popular? They're synonyms!

Completely baffling design decisions - the existing sight was pretty servicable and didnt have any glaring faults for me at least - definitely some things that could be tightened up (the search filtering in the new design is neat for instance) but it's now actively more difficult to parse at a glance what's going on as the colour design has all been flattened so everytings grey (even the dropdowns) where before the categories on s mod tile were a different colour, less mods visible on the page as there's far more padding for no reason...just incredibly weird choices.

[zzundeadzz]

3 hours ago, Isguros said:

They've gone on record saying they won't make changes based on opinions and user experience.

"We disagree and aren't at this time looking for further input from UX professionals. "

"we're also not planning on adapting our approach based on feedback that amounts to "I do not like change"."

~lluviel 2025

 

Basically, if you say you don't like it, they call you a whiner and won't listen, and if you're trying elaborate, give them examples of what it is you don't like and why, they mock your efforts, call you pretentious, and ignore you as well.

Here I still have hope that they will change. After that Spiderman incident, they told F-off to anyone didn't like their changes