Entitled mod users

[Genamine]

Am I the only one who feels like there has been an increase in entitled users in the modding scene?

 

Maybe Im just being judgmental, but I feel like as modding games becomes more popular and more accessible, theres an increase in the average joe that has no idea how much work the tiniest feature can be sometimes

 

The same average joe that has been spoiled by big mods that provide big features, made by a collection of very talented authors

 

The same average joe that then downloads a smaller mod by a sole author and proceeds to downplay said smaller mod, not based on what it does have, but based on what it doesnt have

[acidzebra]

I like to look at it in terms of absolute numbers versus percentages. The site has grown, modding has grown, so the absolute number of asshats has grown. However, the percentage of asshats is about the same as it ever was. There's just more of them around, and they're loud and annoying so they tend to stand out more.

 

Ignore, block, or report as the case may warrant, but don't let them ruin your day; not worth it.

[Genamine]

I like to look at it in terms of absolute numbers versus percentages. The site has grown, modding has grown, so the absolute number of asshats has grown. However, the percentage of asshats is about the same as it ever was. There's just more of them around, and they're loud and annoying so they tend to stand out more.

 

Ignore, block, or report as the case may warrant, but don't let them ruin your day; not worth it.

 

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say when I mentioned the growth in popularity and accessibility of modding games

 

Ive never blocked any users from my mod pages before, maybe Im just too nice or maybe its not at a critical point yet

 

But at the same time I feel like it might discourage new authors trying to get into modding from uploading their work, and if it doesnt yet, it might in the future

[Rabbit1251]

I've been around the hobby since before 2006 (by the Gods, has it been that long?). During that time the self-entitled have been ever present. I think that acidzebra pegged it right. It has to do with numbers. This is reflected in society where more and more people feel that they are self entitled to that which is not theirs. I have felt reluctant to share any of my works for this alone.

 

 

The Rabbit

[kevkiev]

When you see a rather entitled post, it can be interesting to visit that member's nexus profile. I've done that a couple times and, in each case, they'd given zero endorsements despite being a member for over a year. Not exactly a surprising correlation.

[fftfan]

I am thinking I might upload my recolored Flight helmet(red to blue but keeping vanilla style and not altering the other non-red parts) and say about any criticisms please inform me about the procedures involved. There are things I wanted to do with the recolor like make the top black instead of white but it kept getting messed up so I left it as blue & white. It would look a lot better IMO and I expect post to show up right away pointing that out. Like if they can teach me something then their request will be granted.

 

Am I the only one who feels like there has been an increase in entitled users in the modding scene?

Maybe Im just being judgmental, but I feel like as modding games becomes more popular and more accessible, theres an increase in the average joe that has no idea how much work the tiniest feature can be sometimes

The same average joe that has been spoiled by big mods that provide big features, made by a collection of very talented authors

The same average joe that then downloads a smaller mod by a sole author and proceeds to downplay said smaller mod, not based on what it does have, but based on what it doesnt have

I looked on your ME Andromeda modpage's comments and now I really get where you're coming from. I certainly wouldn't be brave enough to upload stuff there since Mass Effect fanbase seems pretty toxic to me. Your mod looks totally fine to me and I think it's especially ridiculous & unfair to criticize it when you consider what ME Andromeda itself has like heads turning backwards or 360 degrees like in the Exorcist and stuff. I think they ought to be thankful to get anything in the way of mods given the quality of ME Andromeda and how usually EA hates modding. I think there is no grounds to criticize since (ironically since it's an Asari) her face at least looks human, much more so than the default NPCs who can look freaky or even monstrous sometimes. Just google ME funny gifs and prepare to find some nightmare fuel creepy/uncanny valley looking people.

When you see a rather entitled post, it can be interesting to visit that member's nexus profile. I've done that a couple times and, in each case, they'd given zero endorsements despite being a member for over a year. Not exactly a surprising correlation.

Interesting, how do I check this(even for my own number of endorsements). I often endorse stuff anyways even if I end up not actively using it simply because I know it is a very difficult mod and I think it's important to give acknowledgement for high effort, challenging mods. Or other times simply because I appreciate the design of the mod, even if I myself do not actively use it there's always the possibility of it helping to inspire the next big author. Or in other cases simply because it's something I want that really should have been put in the game by Bethesda in the first place like Genamine's Military paint for automatron. I checked his profile and spotted that, it happens to be something I wanted when I first installed FO4 for PC. I wanted military paint for settlement guard robots.

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say when I mentioned the growth in popularity and accessibility of modding games

Ive never blocked any users from my mod pages before, maybe Im just too nice or maybe its not at a critical point yet

But at the same time I feel like it might discourage new authors trying to get into modding from uploading their work, and if it doesnt yet, it might in the future

I can say for sure that yes it does discourage me. I got couple of things I could upload but seem to never feel like it. I have retextures but there are some flaws and they certainly aren't professional quality. I got adjusted outfits but there's clipping/gaps that I personally can't stand.

A particularly discouraging case is Better Console - F4SE by Kassent though I believe Bethesda's handling of Creation Club & updates are primarily to blame. He's been great about updating the mod quickly in the past and even had separate versions for those of use who stayed with pre CC update. But he hasn't done an update for the newest version so I am suspecting he is getting tired of always having to update it every few weeks as the game updates sole for Creation Club are getting ridiculously frequent. Or maybe he's waiting for the inevitable next update to avoid wasted work or perhaps he's just taking a break from modding. Or perhaps he simply feels like making something else like working on something new.A lot of people complain and what probably makes it worse is he may be thinking "I could update it now but then it's possible that days latter a new Creation Club game update, F4SE get made so it'd be for nothing"( I don't know what exactly is involved for those updates for new game version + F4SE, maybe they have to redo everything?). I am concerned that possibly Creation Club has driven him away and it may drive other talented people away as well.

I can say for sure that for myself this Creation Club stuff definitely makes me very hesitant to incorporate Script Extender if I would release a mod since maybe I even have to start over and re-code the stuff whenever there's a new update? I'm not always active and I do play other games sometimes so I don't want to end up similar where if I go inactive the mod will become unusable unless I redo it. And when I do spend time on modding I certainly don't want to use it up on revisiting old stuff all the time no I want to do new stuff. Imagine if you're an author of multiple mods that depend on Script Extender, maybe you never get to work on anything new anymore because of this, that would get so boring. Imagine every time somebody makes a 10mm retexture for CC you have to update all the F4SE dependent mods, I think this could cause burnout for the authors. It makes me a lot less inclined to even look into learning scripting since most often we would best utilize the Script Extender's features and I do go inactive for several weeks to a month from time to time particularly when another game I quite like releases such as Dark Souls 3, I end up playing that for quite a while. I also have to worry if we'll see this updating nonsense again but literally doubled when TES VI someday gets released.

[jcdenton2012]

My answer to that is... it depends. I've personally never had much of an issue of users wanting to have a public freak-out, but I've seen people release content before and seen some Grade-A toxicity from some downloaders expecting compatibility patches within hours of the 1.0 upload. [bounties For You] is a pretty good example. There was this one user named crimsondragon who kinda heckled Deathlock47. He eventually even went so far as to do the whole, "And I'll release my own patch with flapjacks and h@@kers," sort of trash talk. Honestly, crimsondragon did a good job moderating his page despite it all.

 

In my personal experience, people who do a lot of modding are typically patient enough or skilled enough to fix glitches and errors on their own. They don't heckle other mod developers unless criticism is requested, and even then they typically stay civil. But, people with low or no skill can be pretty 'clingy' with expecting fixes NOW!! RIGHT NOW!! NOW!! NOW!! NOW!! And, oh boy, do they hold grudges if you don't supply what they want immediately.

[fftfan]

I never understand flaming/destructive criticism, if the person's skills are low why not constructively help them improve? There's 2 ways it can go: 1. Trash the author, probably get blocked from the comments/maybe even the modpage/ignored on forums and your desired changes never happen or 2. Help them improve, get your desired changes and also help make every future file by that author a little bit better. This is way more efficient because if the author makes 10 files then teaching will lead to improvements for all of them.

 

I think maybe I will upload it but will say "advice/education" requested. Chances I already know about the flaws, what I don't know is how to fix them or else I would have already done so. Blue & Black would be better than Blue & White but when I tried problems came up so I didn't like the result, just stuck with Blue & White. It wasn't too difficult to isolate the red parts to change to blue but it was more difficult to isolate the white to change to black. You can get black easily enough but the usual tricks to do it also make the dirt turn like bright purple or else it misses parts and this kept happening even after experimenting with selection tools (Select by Color/Fuzzy Select Tool plus changing the tool settings on those a bunch). Using erase between layers is bad because there's going to be random white. I don't want to do it because it'll take literally many hours and I won't learn anything useful since it's just tedious gradually erasing spots while super zoomed in.

 

If they make their own patch then my permissions section I will specify they need permission or to just give it to me(I don't want my nexus stuff if I upload any to end up in some Creation Club paid mod) so it can be listed as an optional file like AE patch made by PatchMakingGuy. I think talking about such a file like that in comments like "hahaha I gots awesome patch that makes it waaaay better but no I won't share" might be considered theft. Like there's some people who outright say "don't make skimpy versions of my stuff", I am pretty sure if guy in the comment brags about making skimpy version and maybe posting pics would get in trouble. I dislike it when a mod especially a really simple one has 2, 3 or more mod pages that users need to check. For detailed mods sure I get it 100% like when there's lots of workbench customization but IMO not so much for like 1 single recolor having 3 pages especially if we need 3 separate active ESPs to run it. Though the only thing I can think of here is maybe like ArmourSmith Extended but really I'd want to just make it an option in workbench for Red Flight Helmet, I guess that is the other main obstacle because I don't want it to conflict with UCO/ASE or anything else. All I'd want is to add on top a Color option with Red or Blue as choices, but probably that would cause problems with UCO so I'll likely just make the helmet its own reference and try using ESL format so it doesn't use up ESP limit.

 

My conditions for reuse of anything of mine for Creation Club is that it's never allowed. No Commercial use allowed and I want anybody who bought "Creations" that contain stolen content to get full refunds. For improvement/reuse I would like people to tell me about the relevant processes involved. I don't really want artstyle change unless it can be made to fit in well with vanilla. I made the recolor to make the helmet match the Vault Suit(not much matches well with the default red), like a different sort of "vanilla" helmet since I don't like the Vault-Tec Security helmet. Nothing really did this for me since there are blue ones but they look way different like carbon fiber material. If somebody improves it I would very much like them to show me how, it's like the old saying "teach a man to fish". Because otherwise next time when I recolor something else then likely the same issue will come up again and I still won't be able to solve it.

 

If they do teach me I'd add a Special Thanks Credits section for them in the description with big colored letters. IMO it really looks good when an author says "Thanks to HelpfulPerson for teaching me about how to do this/helping me, you rock!"

[0Theara]

I never understand flaming/destructive criticism, if the person's skills are low why not constructively help them improve? There's 2 ways it can go: 1. Trash the author, probably get blocked from the comments/maybe even the modpage/ignored on forums and your desired changes never happen or 2. Help them improve, get your desired changes and also help make every future file by that author a little bit better. This is way more efficient because if the author makes 10 files then teaching will lead to improvements for all of them.

 

You know what they say:

 

[tm2dragon]

I suppose it comes down to just what you consider “entitled“. There are a lot of ways this could be taken! I’m actually a pretty good example for one type of “entitled” mod user. I know little about modding, and can barely use these mods at all without a clear walkthrough. I download mods that don’t do what I want, make a post asking for that feature, then realize that there are mods out there that already do exactly what I wanted! My worst crime would likely be the way I pepper forums, authors, and users with questions I don’t know the answer to, as though is thier DUTY to cator to my ignorant ass.

 

I fit the definition of entitled pretty well; I can’t be bothered to figure this stiff out on my own, pester other users to explain things for me, and don’t provide any mods of my own to give back to the community.

 

Here are somethings to consider though: I ask for help so often because I suffer from a learning disability, and have trouble taking in information unless it is through human interaction. My lack of knowledge when it comes to modding and the community that surrounds it leaves me very out of the loop; thus I make mistakes, often misunderstand what I’m told, and can’t figure out how you all seem to be up to date with news and lingo. My “intitlement” comes from a lack of understanding, and thus I turn to more experienced users to fill me in. More importantly, I TRY to give back to the community where I can. I may not be able to mod myself, but I try to start discussions, get folks talking, offer up ideas for new mods, or how old ones may be improved, and give advice where I can.

 

Basically, yeah, we have some asshats on this site. But even if folks may be annoying, so long as they stay polite and behave themselves, hearing them out and answering a couple questions doesn’t really hurt. I like to think that even the more annoying, ignorant site-users may have something to contribute, and should be treated like any other site member....just using smaller words so our poor, uneducated brains can keep up.

 

But yeah, if a user is all over the site thumping thier chest, raising a ruckus, and providing nothing but rude behavior....by all means, ban the sucker. The folks who just need some more help and hand-holding then most? Well, everyone starts somewhere, right?