do you guys also think "pretty companion" mods are getting out of hand?

[techprince]

 

 

I honestly feel this is more nexus's fault then it's users. They should have a much more costumizable and interesting hotfiles systems based on what the user likes, instead of "whatever random new mod happened to receive a lot of endorsements these past few days"

 

I mean, the way it works now unless you get featured on a youtube channel or get in the hotfiles within a few days after uploading your mod, you have basically no chance of your mod being well known and popular.

I totally agree with this statement, it doesn't matter much if a mod is any good or not because the most important thing is publicity from youtube casters. You could make a brilliant mod but if its not getting any attention from youtube casters your mod is going to be forgotten in the background where nobody will ever find it.

But the thing that imo is the worst about Nexus are the mod lists, basically it all boils down to how many people you can attract, the more people that download your mod the more endorsements you will receive, this leads to your mod going to the hot-files and the mod of the month list which means even more endorsements, this also brings your mod higher in the general "category" list and this yet again brings in more people to download your mod....basically its a cumulative effect of more and more endorsements and getting higher in the mod lists.

 

Also those old mods from 4 years ago that are on the top of that list have gotten so many endorsements now that they will ALWAYS stay on the top, no matter if a newer and 10x better mod comes along, because people will still see/download/endorse that old mod far more than the newer one.

And on the other hand that new mod will never get that much attention, meaning it will never be able to compete with that old mod due to how the Nexus works.

Lets be honest here, if people search for mods they will very rarely go beyond the first or the second page in their category list, all the mods beyond that are just clutter in the background covered in dust that nobody looks at.

 

Of course you have the rare exceptions of mods that somehow manage to break through all that, but accomplishing this is almost impossible at this point, the mod would have to be perfect, get massive youtube publicity and show fancy screenshots with full blown ENB to attract people.

 

Imo these are the 3 most important things to make mods be a success:

1.)Youtube publicity

This is by far the best (and probably the only) way to actually get your mod set on the right course, without these casters you have no chance of your mod becoming known to the public and it will be forgotten in the background where nobody finds it.

If you are a well known modder those youtube casters will feature your mod without questions, if however you are a new to the modding scene you have little chance of those casters showing any interest in your work...

 

2.)Time

Old successful mods will always have the advantage of time on their side, newer mods just cannot compete with that, instead of Nexus showing the total amount of endorsements it could very well only show the endorsements giver for each month(or show both total and monthly endorsements), this would allow newer and better made mods to also compete with those older mods.

Sadly this is not the case and imo this is major flaw in how Nexus works because it doesn't give newer mods any chance of survivability, people will still download the old mods since they remain on the top of the list...for ever.

Its like a circle of cumulative effect that keeps going for those old mods while it bumps out all the newer mods.

 

3.)Sex appeal

Well what can I say, sex sells...put some fancy ladies on the screenshots with a nice ENB and voila, you've got people downloading it like its free candy while the endorsements follow suit and before you know it its in the hot list and file of the month list.

 

So to reply on the OP's question: pretty much everything that could be modded for Skyrim has been done by now in some extent so people don't have much interest in newer mods that basically accomplish the same thing as older mods, however something that people will always be interested in are fancy female characters and armors as long as it has that extra "sparkle" that the previous female mod did not have.

 

 

Perfectly said. Also, there was a feature system in each category before.This system used to show all the mods who haven't received any views / downloads which was clever way to promote on site.

 

On the note of reviewers; most of the reviewers only feature/review mods which are created by their friends or the ones which are already in hotfiles. Which defeats the sole purpose of featuring/reviewing.

 

On topic : this is my story; i made 8 follower mods in 2013-2014. None of them went to frontpage. Perhaps they weren't pretty enough. Frontpage was and still is crawling with "out of proportional", "child", "anime", "asian" NPC's. Only way you can block is through tag blocking. Simply blocking "anime" will filter many many mods. I wanted to block tags, category wise but nexus doesn't provide this feature yet.

 

Morale of the story, this has been going on since long time and is not game specific.

Edited January 26, 2015 by techprince

[ryanshowseason2]

Quite honestly I don't see the point in any follower mod if it isn't going to do any better than Lydia.

 

If it does better than Serana then I''ll probly start a new playthrough to experience it.

 

But all these follower mods that just add someone to fight with you and say nothing? Why? I can already make everyone already in skyrim look like supermodels adding a specific new supermodel doesn't seem worth the load order space.

 

Makes me think I am somehow wired differently than others, I love the skimpy stuff as much as the next perv but pretty follower mods don't seem to have a point?

 

Throwing a skimpy outfit on cerwiden though, now we're talking! Form and function!

[TWarrior]

i remeber the feature system! i found some great gems there. low downloads, low endorsments but good non the less. where has this feature gone? it wasnt up for a long time, wasnt it?

[kniggit92]

I like to see follower mods make the front page because I appreciate the screenshots and am interested in the mods they use to achieve their looks. Sure some of them are generic but there is the oddball unique one out there every once in a while that points me in the direction of a new skin mod, enb or way of mod making. They're also nice for inspiration on making my own followers, it's sometimes hard to come up with good looking faces that look realistic, take the Meera mod that is on the hotlist right now for example, I would never use her as a follower since her dialogue is so limited, but the shape of the face and the eyes did give me inspiration, the credits also pointed me in the direction of FEP, a below 300 endorsements mod that I would otherwise never have found.

[Corwin1971]

Yes, I find it depressing. For games like Skyrim (and Morrowind, and Oblivion, and the modern Fallouts, and other games as well) it's mods that keep me playing those games, coming back to them again and again. The release of an interesting new mod can reignite my passion for the game enough that it can lead to another ~50 hour love affair with it. When I visit the Nexus, and I often do, and see five more cut and paste cute companion mods, it has the opposite effect on my enthusiasm.

 

I'm not saying people can't and shouldn't do what they wanna do, but it's disappointing and boring to me that this is, in fact, what so many people seem to want to do. I'll never use 95% of the mods on here, and it's just a bit of work (and like I said, kinda depressing work) to wade through these things to get to what I would consider worthwhile content.

[PetPet]

I found it odd that people are using "hot files" as a tool to find mods they like to try...consider the system is mostly based on download counts and endorsement...the result will no doubt give recent uploads and mods with attention getting pictures (which apply to both pretty npc faces and pretty enb presets) more weight. The complaints I am hearing is that..."darn the hot files list, I have to work to find mods I like to try"...perhaps it is just me, but when I "work" to find the mods I like to try...I ended up finding many amazing mods that I would have no chance finding without doing some serious digging.

 

I like quest mods, and there are many I loved would have no chance appearing on Nexus hot files and FOTM lists. Should I waste time typing out a post complaining "hot files" not featuring my favorite quest mods...or should I spend time trying out another quest mod...

 

Is that even a question??

[DarkCheap]

The day someone makes a program to easily make your own follower (Sans Familiar Faces) People will stop uploadng Generic follower mods for sure

 

TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY CHERYL!

[Deleted4169574User]

There will always be mods like this. It's amazing if what appears on the hotfiles isn't "Immersive Skimpy Armor," some body replacer for females, or an ENB.

[lsdravian]

Last year there was an explosion of high res cloud textures making the hotfiles every day. After that, sexed up statue mods became popular for a time. This too shall pass. While we've always had an abundance of follower mods, I think the recent trend in follower hotfiles is a result of bigger mod authors having moved on as well as the trend's own popularity feeding back into itself – more people see followers making the hotfiles, and more want to make their own. Mods like the brilliant RaceMenu have made it easier than ever to make your own quality looking npc without having to completely immerse yourself in Blender. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Making a follower is the starting point for many would-be modders - seeing the custom face you made yourself on a working npc in-game is a relatively high payoff for tackling the creation kit basics, which can seem like a daunting learning curve for the uninitiated. Sure most followers are simple - pretty face with default combat. But that alone is the first step. Next time, the author might want to experiment with other combat styles, start learning about how spells work in the CK. Then you start modding your own, replacing weapons and spell effects, looking for new nifs. Eventually you begin wanting to make your resources own from scratch, and you feel ambitious enough to tackle programs like blender. Or you start getting interested in building an actual quest for your new npcs, and that leads into a whole other chapter of modding. No one remains satisfied with what they know; you build a basic follower, you grow confident, then you want to build better ones with better things.

 

It's interesting that so many of these front page follower mods are prefaced with some variation of "This is my first time making a mod so...!". Whether pretty followers are a passing fad or are here to stay, I see them as a sign that even three years after Skyrim's release there is still a new generation of modders getting inspired to join the fray. I don't mean every person who makes a follower of course, but one or two out of the crowd of new beginners will aspire to make greater things. And of course they'll put their followers on the Nexus because they're proud of their work, as they should be. Mod creation will be completely foreign territory for most casual players. But like I said, you gotta start somewhere.

 

It's understandable that some people don't care for these mods or are frustrated by their repetition. But if you look at these followers and feel disappointed, or even embarrassed, of the modding community because you feel they're too rudimentary to deserve popularity then that only speaks to your own twisted sense of entitlement to a free modding website.

[techprince]

i remeber the feature system! i found some great gems there. low downloads, low endorsments but good non the less. where has this feature gone? it wasnt up for a long time, wasnt it?

Yes :D it was seriously one of the best features. I dont know why they removed it. It was a clever way to feature the files. I would like to see this feature back. Its been long time since it was removed. Didnt even find the reason in the site news that time lol.