Modmakers: please consider players may be using other mods

[EnaiSiaion]

Maybe your mod is good. Maybe it is really, really good. But most people will use other mods besides yours. Therefore, for the love of Kyne make sure your mod plays nicely with other similar mods, and I don't just mean "it doesn't crash".

 

 

Softcode.

Always-on quests and already existing markers are your friend. If you can avoid editing default content, do so. You want to improve the damage of all destruction spells? Don't just go through them and edit them one by one, but give the player a perk that increases the damage of spells with the elemental keywords in them. You want to place a dead NPC on a mountain somewhere? Don't go to that cell and plonk the NPC there, but make a quest that spawns the NPC at a nearby marker.

 

Exception: the mod is highly specialised and there is no way the player will possibly need more than one mod like it (eg. Belua Sanguinare can do whatever it wants to vampire-related content).

 

 

Don't claim dibs on content you don't need.

Your armor set does not need an edited cell. Yes, it may be fun for the player to retrieve the armor from a rooftop or buy it from an NPC. No, this does not warrant putting that asterisk in the name of the Whiterun cell. Your mod does not need Whiterun more than the other mod the player is using, which completely overhauls Whiterun.

 

 

Don't hog design space.

Do not plant your flag on features to the point where other mods can no longer use them. A recent example is a general rebalancing mod that isn't even about shouts but still provides a huge 50% shout cooldown reduction, adding up to 90% with an amulet of Talos and Morokei.

 

 

Make your mod fail gracefully when uninstalled or superseded by another mod in the load order.

Anything the player will get stuck with after they uninstall the mod is bad. A particularly common issue is the use of scripted abilities ended only by OnEffectFinish(), or objects/perks that are added and removed by scripts. Also, scripts that do not terminate themselves should come with a periodic update event or loop that reads a constant and verifies it matches a magic number: when the mod is removed, the constant will cease to exist (note: variables do persist) and the check will fail, at which point the script should clean up everything it spawned and Stop().

 

 

 

In general: do not assume your mod is the only one the player will be using, and when you implement a feature that is not part of your mod's core content ask yourself whether it would be compatible with mods that specialise in the thing you're modifying. Thanks for your consideration.

[JanusForbeare]

I can understand your argument, and there are definitely good tips in here for new modders. However, I have to disagree with this point:

 

Don't claim dibs on content you don't need.

 

It's not reasonable to expect 90% of mod authors to create new cells - and if they did, Skyrim would be pretty boring, because most of it would be identical to vanilla. The fact is, sometimes mods are going to collide. Of course you want to reduce the risk of that occurring, but that's no reason to shy away from modding vanilla content. If you run across a cell-based conflict between your mod and someone else's (as I did recently), it can very often be solved by playing around with load order. If it can't, you can always contact the author of the conflicting mod to discuss the problem and ways of circumventing it through a patch or updated version of one/both of your mods. Worst case scenario, players have to make a judgement call about which they want more. You potentially lose downloads if you choose option #3, which I think is motivation enough for authors to attempt one of the other solutions, but if they don't work out, they don't work out.

 

In general, I agree with what you're saying. Mod authors should aim for maximum compatibility. It's just good business, if you want to maximize your downloads/endorsements. However, I think it's ultimately the user's responsibility to keep their own game running, not the mod author's. If you download 200 mods in a single night, you better expect complications. Modding your game is always a gamble, and if you're not willing to lose a save, or feel that you are too far along to roll up a new character, then maybe you should stick to vanilla.

[koyabr]

+1 for scripts self-cleaning, it should be convention among all scripters.

[EnaiSiaion]

I agree sometimes cell conflicts are unavoidable. Staking a claim on Riverwood just because you want to place 1 book, however, is not a good reason. There are plenty of XMarkers around the place, use them.

 

Also, installing mods should not have to be a gamble. :confused: When the player installs a mod that changes Whiterun and then applies 200 mods that are not about Whiterun, the player should be able to expect Whiterun to stay that way.

[throttlekitty]

I came here expecting another one of those threads. Great points, things I hadn't much thought about, thanks! I haven't done any 'real' modding for Skyrim yet, and I probably would have continued using older modding methods.

 

I'll have to look into using markers like this, unless you have something handy that I could look at?

[thefinn]

Dear god man, you came all this way and made this thread and you didn't mention NAMING CONVENTIONS?!?

 

People are still doing BASICALLY AWFUL STUFF when it comes to this. Even many many of the youtube tutorials do not even consider naming conventions when teaching people to create actors, items or cells.

 

This can lead to all kinds of issues and confusion when someone is trying to find a CTD issue or other unexplained phenomena.

 

I have to agree with Janus above too, skyrim will become pretty boring if people don't mod vanilla.

 

Take a look at Immersive Armors and TERA armor packs... They both create new blacksmithing headers and recently had to rewrite so as to avoid conflicting over the only 2 free spots bethesda have left us. Now I am writing a bunch of things for various robe and jewelry types and I know damned well I'm going to have issues adding to that, so I avoid it. It's all part and parcel of modding.

 

People should (at least within reasonable limits) look up other mods that might change the same piece of the game you're after - make a forum post asking people about it if need be - even players will get back to you telling you "oh yeah such and such a mod changes that".

[ArtMurder]

""Softcode.

Always-on quests and already existing markers are your friend. If you can avoid editing default content, do so. You want to improve the damage of all destruction spells? Don't just go through them and edit them one by one, but give the player a perk that increases the damage of spells with the elemental keywords in them.""

 

No. No. No.

 

"Always on quests" are one of the biggest pain in the asses to me, I have almost uninstalled moonpath to eslwery just because of this. It's very annoying and immersion breaking to have a 'MAGIC QUEST FROM NOWHERE THAT IS ALWAYS THERE AND NEVER GOES AWAY EVEN THOUGH ITS ABOUT SOME SMALL OBSCURE THING YOU SHOULDN'T KNOW ABOUT"

 

Secondly, Mods that mod PERKS are the single most conflicting annoying mods in existence, since MOST people use some sort of perk overhaul (like SkyRe, there are many others) that makes these mods COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE, and I can't tell you how many times I've had to totally ignore a mod that randomly adds in perks when it was totally unnecessary.

 

""Don't claim dibs on content you don't need.

Your armor set does not need an edited cell. Yes, it may be fun for the player to retrieve the armor from a rooftop or buy it from an NPC. No, this does not warrant putting that asterisk in the name of the Whiterun cell. Your mod does not need Whiterun more than the other mod the player is using, which completely overhauls Whiterun.""

 

I play mods to MOD my game. If a person wants to include there mod into a game in a way that is lore friendly instead of making me use the console, then by all means YES they can edit a cell to put it in.

 

""Make your mod fail gracefully when uninstalled or superseded by another mod in the load order.

Anything the player will get stuck with after they uninstall the mod is bad. A particularly common issue is the use of scripted abilities ended only by OnEffectFinish(), or objects/perks that are added and removed by scripts. Also, scripts that do not terminate themselves should come with a periodic update event or loop that reads a constant and verifies it matches a magic number: when the mod is removed, the constant will cease to exist (note: variables do persist) and the check will fail, at which point the script should clean up everything it spawned and Stop().""

 

This simply isn't possible for some mods, and a mod maker isn't going to not make a mod altogether just because you want it to be easy to uninstall. The more complex a mod, the more you should look into it before you install it. It's YOU who installed a mod you don't want and now have to uninstall it, it's in no way the modders fault you downloaded their mod when you don't want it. Yes, mods should fail gracefully if possible, and if it is possible, they do, if it isn't, they don't, and no one should ever dumb down and dull out their mod just to make it easier to uninstall.

 

 

There are thousands of mods, people shouldn't tailor make their mods to be compatible with every one in existence, I would MUCH MUCH MUCH rather have fewer complex mods then tons and tons and tons of boring simple mods that barely do anything, that will likely end up causing issues anyways do to the sheer number of mods. (since I already have nearly 150 mods many of which are extremely complex) I do agree, yes, modders should think about other mods when they make them, I have even seen one or two out there that pretty much say "If this isn't the only mod you have installed in skyrim it won't work" But guess what.... NO ONE IS MAKING YOU DOWNLOAD THEM. If a modder wants to make an over complex mod that is impossible to be compatible with anything, then it's their loss when no one downloads it. The thing is, with some simple research and thorough reading off descriptions and read-mes, you yourself can make all the mods you want compatible with each other, our find compatible alternatives, instead of complaining to the people who make the mods to strip them off their features so you don't have to do the work to make your game run flawlessly.

[throttlekitty]

Heaven forbid someone make suggestions to make life easier for modders and users. Someone might take it the wrong way and be forced to comment!

[EnaiSiaion]

"Always on quests" are one of the biggest pain in the asses to me, I have almost uninstalled moonpath to eslwery just because of this. It's very annoying and immersion breaking to have a 'MAGIC QUEST FROM NOWHERE THAT IS ALWAYS THERE AND NEVER GOES AWAY EVEN THOUGH ITS ABOUT SOME SMALL OBSCURE THING YOU SHOULDN'T KNOW ABOUT"

 

You actually have to put in some effort to make a quest visible, so this was entirely the modmaker's choice.

 

Secondly, Mods that mod PERKS are the single most conflicting annoying mods in existence, since MOST people use some sort of perk overhaul (like SkyRe, there are many others) that makes these mods COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE, and I can't tell you how many times I've had to totally ignore a mod that randomly adds in perks when it was totally unnecessary.

 

Perks have a "Hidden" checkbox. You probably have a bunch of hidden perks and don't know it. Every mod that implements "magic scaling" for instance uses at least one perk. You also confuse modifying existing perks with adding new perks.

 

I play mods to MOD my game. If a person wants to include there mod into a game in a way that is lore friendly instead of making me use the console, then by all means YES they can edit a cell to put it in.

 

You can place items without "using the console". Unfortunately you shot down the method to do so (due to not knowing how it works). If you really want to micro the position of an object, place it at a marker and then move it using papyrus.

 

This simply isn't possible for some mods, and a mod maker isn't going to not make a mod altogether just because you want it to be easy to uninstall. The more complex a mod, the more you should look into it before you install it. It's YOU who installed a mod you don't want and now have to uninstall it, it's in no way the modders fault you downloaded their mod when you don't want it. Yes, mods should fail gracefully if possible, and if it is possible, they do, if it isn't, they don't, and no one should ever dumb down and dull out their mod just to make it easier to uninstall.

 

It is always possible.