Is Fallout 4 Modding Scene Dead ?

[Aeradom]

Let me start by saying my own frame of reference is when it comes to Skyrim and even then, I didn't start playing (and modding) until a year and after its release. But as I'm going through and installing mods to go back and play Fallout 4, I'm surprised to see how many mods haven't been updated for months. Now most of them I suppose don't really need to be like (like After the Fallout that is just a texture overhaul). But it just seems that more mods were being updated regularly (at least to coincide with the updates) than are here. As such this is really more of a two part question. The first one should be simple but it's also the one that I can't comment on; is there a similar number of mods (high quality or otherwise) as there was this point in time after Skyrim's release?

The second question though is more an introspective and a bit more subjective. I'm curious if I'm accurate that just the overall mood/morale of the community has grown to be if not dead, defeated. There are so many mods that I go around where I see authors that have put up on their main page that they will no longer support their mods. Don't mistake me, it's well within their rights to step away and I don't begrudge them for doing so. But the fact so many have left speaks to the heart of the question. It's ironic that it seems like the majority of the drama in the modding community started with the release of console mods. There was many who left at least for a time over that debacle. Then there was the situation with the Nvidia mod contest.

To make matters worse, the feeling I'm getting from others is that it's just more difficult to mod Fallout 4 than before. Not due to the level of complexity or unfamiliarity with the tools mind you. But instead due to Bethesda choosing to make some questionable decisions. For instance, I don't recall the Unofficial Patch team having to put up a post about being limited to what they can and cannot fix.

Like I said before, I have a limited experience here so would appreciate knowing if I'm just over-reacting to everything. Hopefully, I am; maybe in six months to a years time, Nexus will be filled with great mods by a wide range of authors. It just doesn't feel right to say that. But if the modding scene for Fallout really is dying out, is there anything that can be done at this point to fix it? Or is this a case where the damage is done and there's no turning back the clock?

(Meant to edit the title to sound less dramatic/extreme, but hit enter as was going through the backspace. What I meant to say was "dying".)

Edited September 21, 2016 by Aeradom

[iXenite]

Fallout 4 has already surpassed Fallout 3 and Morrowind for amount of files, and will probably pass New Vegas sooner rather than later. Mods are abandoned for a variety of reasons. Many left the community after the paid mods disaster for Skyrim, and more left when Bethesda.net initially failed to prevent the rather rampant piracy of mods. Other mods stopped to updated because they were made before the Creation Kit was released, and upon the release of the CK were probably replaced by something better. Plus, not every mod gets updated. Many mods on the Skyrim Nexus never received updates beyond the initial month of their release. Fallout 4 modding really is just starting, and it will only get stronger moving forward. Though, I will let you know right now that modding in general for the Fallout titles is not as popular as Elder Scrolls games.

[Wunderbot]

Dark0ne himself has already adressed this issue because it keeps coming up. Some of the bigger points he made were:

1) Elder Scrolls simply has a bigger fanbase than Fallout. Always has.

2) For every game on the Nexus, the same occurs. The first months have tons of mods coming out because people notice issues that they want fixed. Once all those are done, we enter the phase where people work on bigger projects, and those take time, so you don't get a whole bunch of daily mods anymore.

[charwo]

I posted a similar thing to this. I think the best answer is that the F4SE is still getting fixed up and that's going to take awhile.

 

That and let's be frank: there are so many, many problems with the game that easy, quick fixes just aren't in the cards. Even Fallout Classic Weapons pack, people will expect all the guns to be uber moddable, a decision has to be made about whether to reintroduce small energy cells and with New Vegas, there's a LOT more weapons to include than there was for the New Vegas version of Fallout Classic weapons.

That's to say nothing of the dialogue overhauls, allowing for perk checks, redoing levels so it's possible to talk your way out of fights (someone's already made a mod that makes the Gunner's neutral unless you cross them, now what they need is something to make the baddies at East City Downs and Combat Zone friendly, and an ability to bluff through the Triggermen in Vault 114). This game was half built as and just waiting for mods that restore Skyrim functions alone (a horse, dual wielding, hopefully all the realistic animals) are substantial.

Maybe the good mods are coming. I wouldn't expect them this year and until then, I'm going back to Vegas.

[Aeradom]

Fallout 4 has already surpassed Fallout 3 and Morrowind for amount of files, and will probably pass New Vegas sooner rather than later. Mods are abandoned for a variety of reasons. Many left the community after the paid mods disaster for Skyrim, and more left when Bethesda.net initially failed to prevent the rather rampant piracy of mods. Other mods stopped to updated because they were made before the Creation Kit was released, and upon the release of the CK were probably replaced by something better. Plus, not every mod gets updated. Many mods on the Skyrim Nexus never received updates beyond the initial month of their release. Fallout 4 modding really is just starting, and it will only get stronger moving forward. Though, I will let you know right now that modding in general for the Fallout titles is not as popular as Elder Scrolls games.

 

Dark0ne himself has already adressed this issue because it keeps coming up. Some of the bigger points he made were:

1) Elder Scrolls simply has a bigger fanbase than Fallout. Always has.

2) For every game on the Nexus, the same occurs. The first months have tons of mods coming out because people notice issues that they want fixed. Once all those are done, we enter the phase where people work on bigger projects, and those take time, so you don't get a whole bunch of daily mods anymore.

 

I wonder if relying on the raw number of mods at this point is a red herring. While it might be true the number of mods released from the time of the game's launch might be more than previous fallout games (or any elder scrolls game not named Skyrim), when you consider the fact that Fallout 4 sold more copies in the first 24 hours than FNV has to date, shouldn't we expect that? Plus, think of how much the modding scene has exploded since Skyrim's initial release that brought in so many new people to the modding community. Those two points would lead me to conclude that even if you factor in that Fallout has a smaller fanbase than the Elder Scrolls series, there should be more activity than there is right now. What I'd actually be more curious about is how frequently mods were being updated/supported by mod authors for the same period of time. Or failing that, to take the period between the CK's release and now and compare that to Skyrim's same time period (or FNV for that matter). Either of those would be a better indicator of how lively the community is than merely looking at the raw numbers.

 

The problem (or at least what I perceive to be) isn't the high number of mods in comparison to previous games, but instead the high number of drama. It's all those controversies or issues that to me has led to a general feeling of.. well being defeated I guess it the best term. That's why I think so many mod authors have decided to move on, but also hide their mods from others to download. It's not that I blame them considering all that's occurred over past two years. Still, it does concern me for the long term future of the Fallout 4 modding scene.

 

After all, something that can't be argued with is the sheer number of mods that have been purposefully hidden by mod authors. I'd be shocked to find out that happened with any game, let alone a Fallout or Elder Scrolls game.

 

Edit: Something that I'd like someone to explain who does a lot of modding is what makes modding for this game more problematic if it's based on the same CK since Oblivion (or before that). Like with the UFOP team saying there's a lot that they will not touch; I don't ever recall that being a thing for Skyrim.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Aeradom

[iXenite]

You have to remember how many of those people that bought Fallout 4 are on consoles and cannot make mods, and how many people on PC bought it with no desire to make mods of their own.

[RS13]

Oh stop. We've had dozens of these threads already. There is nothing new to say about it.

[Aeradom]

You have to remember how many of those people that bought Fallout 4 are on consoles and cannot make mods, and how many people on PC bought it with no desire to make mods of their own.

 

You could be right. However, while I have no hard data to support this, I would imagine that the percentage of those that make mods would be similar to Skyrim and Fallout 4. Just because nothing that I can think of would make those two consumer bases dramatically different. Which assuming that's the case then I'd expect more activity.

 

Oh stop. We've had dozens of these threads already. There is nothing new to say about it.

Then don't comment? Funny enough I actually typed the key words of the title into the search bar but didn't find any results. Perhaps had I reworded it a few times I'd of found differently. But I didn't, and thus is why I posted. Feel free to not contribute if you've had this conversation "dozens" of times.

[RS13]

Robin said it best on one of the many many other "OMG IS MODDING DEAD!" threads:

"Statistically, Fallout modding has never been as popular as Elder Scrolls modding. If you compare Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas numbers to Skyrim then the numbers aren't even in the same ball park. The Fallout series seemingly doesn't have the same long term appeal that the Elder Scrolls series does. Oblivion, released in 2006 sits comfortably between Fallout 3 (released 2008) and Fallout New Vegas (released 2010) in our stats. That should tell you everything you need to know.

If you'd like to actually use some statistical data to come up with some conclusions then here are the relevant pages:

Oblivion stats

Skyrim stats

Fallout 3 stats

Fallout New Vegas stats

Fallout 4 stats

Most of the games start with a very high amount of new files/downloads. This is completely normal; a single-player game is always played the most in its first month. It also makes logical sense that the most mods will be generated in those first few months as well; mainly because the very quick, "simple", small and "easy" mods are all released in those first few months. After that, modding slows down. This is a natural slow down as a result of the fact most of the small and simple mods that were wanted/needed were churned out in those first few months. As a result, mod releases slow down, to be replaced with the more content-rich mods that take more time. Bigger mods, but less of them. Logical, no?

If you compare Skyrim stats with Fallout 4's, you'll see Skyrim modding was always most popular straight from the start.

You'll also notice that during the late spring and summer months, there's normally a small sharp rise in one month, followed by a decrease in downloads in the others, followed by a rise towards Autumn and Winter again. The sharp rise can be attributed to the Steam Summer Sale. The decline in downloads during summer can be attributed to people going on holiday and getting out more due to the weather improving.

My conclusion would be that the current stats of Fallout 4 modding is natural when compared to Bethesda's other main games, and indeed when taking in to account the Elder Scrolls is a more popular modding franchise than the Fallout series. We can also conclude that it's way too soon to be able to accurately say that the game is dying.

My experience with making these posts -- where I bring actual facts and conclusions based on said facts in to things -- is that my comments go largely ignored because people came here to vent and come up with wild speculation to support the agenda they had when first posting here. Lets see if that trend continues."

Source: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4706355-modding-dying/page-2

Question answered? Good, now get on with your day.

[Rabbit1251]

I don't know if it's dead, but it really didn't get much of a chance to start, actually. It didn't take long after it's release before Bethesda stepped in and placed awkward controls on modding the game. Fixes were released by dedicated users only to have them unexplained superseded by updates. Many people still cannot get mods to run in their games. Others get the mods to run only to have them mysteriously unable themselves. I find myself afraid to add any new mods to my game for fear of resetting everything back to zero. I then have to use four utility programs and two websites to get things back to normal. It takes me a whole afternoon of potential game playing time to get to the point that I can play again which I find unreasonably frustrating. This does not encourage me to make mods for a game that is so hostile to change.

 

Anyway, that's this bunny's opinion.

 

 

The Rabbit