Is there really NO simple fix for incompatability and mod errors?

[stormfrog]

I was supposed to play Skyrim tonight. Ive played maybe 10 minutes and spent 5 hours removing and adding mods trying tog find out which one causes crashes. Well, it seems just plain IMPOSSIBLE. Once you have a dozen mods there simply is no way to know how they affect the game, what they change and how to repair crashes and bugs. The only choice left is to either continue playing with random crashes every now and then or just remove all mods completely?

 

That Skyrim has no built in Quality check for custom mods is a horrible misstake from Bethesdas side. IMO Skyrim isnt worth playing vanilla because it looks like crap and is filled with cumbersome and inconvenient "features". Vanilla following system is worthless, vanilla horses are pathetic and about as fast as a dead herring, animations are horrible... etc etc. So I am stuck with a crippled game.

 

Ive tried some of the utilities to improve Compatability but they dont do squat for me. NMM is good only for removing mods you are bored with, it doesnt provide any help with solving incompatability.

 

So, is there ANY other simple way that can help me except removing all mods completely?

[Korodic]

There is no mistake on Bethesdas side, there is a mistake on your side. As a mod-user you are responsible for what you download, nobody else. You need to know which mods will work unquestionably well with each other, and also that certain authors are not as "clean" and that can really throw you off.

 

Clean - no accidental edits in unrelated areas.

 

I would do a clean install, and be more careful next time. Trying to narrow it down can only help so much, but if you'd rather wait posting a screenshot of your mods list may help.

[Dweedle]

Why does Skyrim need a quality check? You're meant to be your own quality checker.

 

Whenever you download a mod you are meant to check readmes and incompatibilities.

 

First off, NMM is in BETA and it does have issues, it is better to manually install and uninstall mods by following readmes etc, NMM is the lazy man's way to mod a game. Only use it if a mod says it is best to use and imo never use it to install things such as textures.

 

Secondly, have you attempted to use BOSS at all? http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/6 this program exists to help solve load order woes and a lot of mods are in its database. It also provides a way to copy/paste your load order to this website to help us diagnose your problem.

 

Thirdly, you must use Wrye Bash to create a bashed patch that will help you solve incompatibilities. It takes afew hours to learn to use but it is worth it. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1840 Wrye Bash is the hot latina babe with the long legs of the Skyrim mod fixing scene and makes so many problems go away. Wrye Bash can also install mods and is very good at it too, but generally manual install is the best way to go.

 

Hopefully usage of these tools will help you and your woes.

 

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention, to reset your game to vanilla follow this guide http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Make_Skyrim_Vanilla_Again

Edited January 3, 2013 by Dweedle

[stormfrog]

Sorry but were simply looking at this from VERY different perspectives. It is my opinion that Bethseda seems to have a "policy" to sell broken products and then provide customers with the tools to fix it. As a social experiment I think this is pretty frakin interesting, even amazing. But as a customer I have absolutely no intention of fixing anything, even less learning to use some weird whackadoodle tool to edit the game to make it work.

 

The problems starts with all mods being distributed. (duh) One mod that according to dev fixes a light source also might do some other things not documented by the mod. Install a dozen or so mods and you have an utterly haywire collection of mods. And probably about as many conflicts as installed mods.

 

Mods are awesome and they are what makes the game worth playing. Id never ever play Skyrim w/o mods. But I have no intention of spending a lot of time trying to make it work. Thats my problem. Some douche coming along posting "go home, you are drunk", "then dont play Skyrim lollllll" might be entertaining but it doesnt really solve the problem I am seeing :)

 

There are other games with mods or DLC's, like Masseffect. They are nowhere near as flexible as mods in Skyrim and you cant really compare it. But thats how it should work imo. They work all the time and w/o any fuss. Since such a huge part of the value of this game lies in its mods, wouldnt it be natural for Bethesda to create a means of QoC for the game? It could be something similar to iStore were all apps are tested rigorously before made available to the public. Just something other than droping crap in a folder, bashing it around with a hammer and then preying to Talos it will keep together and execute; which is how Skyrim currently manages mods.

 

If you think Bethesda should rule the world and the way they manage mods is just about the most brilliant thing ever and the peak of human civilazation you are a welcome to your opinion ofc. Just dont belittle mine :)

[stormfrog]

 

 

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention, to reset your game to vanilla follow this guide http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Make_Skyrim_Vanilla_Again

 

 

OMG, thats very helpful. Ill check that out now. Saves me the trouble of reinstalling! :)

[bigv32]

Sorry but were simply looking at this from VERY different perspectives. It is my opinion that Bethseda seems to have a "policy" to sell broken products and then provide customers with the tools to fix it. As a social experiment I think this is pretty frakin interesting, even amazing. But as a customer I have absolutely no intention of fixing anything, even less learning to use some weird whackadoodle tool to edit the game to make it work.

 

The problems starts with all mods being distributed. (duh) One mod that according to dev fixes a light source also might do some other things not documented by the mod. Install a dozen or so mods and you have an utterly haywire collection of mods. And probably about as many conflicts as installed mods.

 

Mods are awesome and they are what makes the game worth playing. Id never ever play Skyrim w/o mods. But I have no intention of spending a lot of time trying to make it work. Thats my problem. Some douche coming along posting "go home, you are drunk", "then dont play Skyrim lollllll" might be entertaining but it doesnt really solve the problem I am seeing :)

 

There are other games with mods or DLC's, like Masseffect. They are nowhere near as flexible as mods in Skyrim and you cant really compare it. But thats how it should work imo. They work all the time and w/o any fuss. Since such a huge part of the value of this game lies in its mods, wouldnt it be natural for Bethesda to create a means of QoC for the game? It could be something similar to iStore were all apps are tested rigorously before made available to the public. Just something other than droping crap in a folder, bashing it around with a hammer and then preying to Talos it will keep together and execute; which is how Skyrim currently manages mods.

 

If you think Bethesda should rule the world and the way they manage mods is just about the most brilliant thing ever and the peak of human civilazation you are a welcome to your opinion ofc. Just dont belittle mine :)

 

Okay, first off, I agree that bethesda games aren't the best things in the world when they are released. However, what they are are games that work. Everything that Bethesda releases works with what Bethesda released. 99.99999% of the time that someone has an issue it is because of a mod or something they did. All Bethesda does has to do is make sure their stuff works because thats what they make their money on.

 

You hear this argument every stickin time a new patch comes out and SKSE doesn't work for a few days. Why doesn't Bethesda make their game work with modders work? If they did, then that would cause so many more problems then it would solve. If you make the game work with all the modded material in the universe, first off it can't be done. Secondly, you will basically be saying that people have to mod or use something that Bethesda makes no money from to make the game work.

 

Bethesda LET'S us mod because that's the reason we buy the games. Part of the reason Skyrim and the Fallouts are so "broken" is because they basically need to be open source software that can easily be altered. When you also consider that they are making these games so that the exact same game (with some very small differences) works on not only the XBOX 360, PS3, but also an almost infinite amount of hardware configurations for computers, there is no way a developer can do that and still have as open of a game as the Fallouts and Skyrim. Note: part of the reason the default Skyrim looks so bad is because it is not meant to be the best looking game in the world. This allows MORE people to play it who can't afford a super gaming computer that can run the most demanding software.

 

Think about Cyrsis. When that came out, it required one **** of a machine to run at max settings (techincally, it still does lol). What did this mean? It was an amazing looking game that was very well put together. They knew what they wanted to do with the game and they did it. Note: I know you can mod Cyrsis and you can do it almost as much as Skyrim. The main difference is the ease. There is no way in the world that Cyrsis will ever be able to match Skyrim or the Fallout games when it comes to shear quantity of mods that are put out there. There are so many mods that it is possible to play the game dozens of times and never have the same mod load out once while still having a great time.

 

Now, at the risk of sounding like Uncle Ben, with that amount of freedom comes a greater amount of responsibility. It is the game owners responsibility to know what they are doing and how it will affect their game. The amount of freedom the modding community has, the harder it is to make everything work.

 

You asked if there was no simple fix for incompatibilities. Depends on what YOU did to YOUR game. However, aside from altering a save game, there are tools out there to help YOU or others that are kind enough to help you on sites like this to fix those issues. It is not impossible if you are smart about what mods you install and by know what they do. You aren't stuck with a "crippled game" as you put it earlier. You are stuck with a game that worked on its own till you did something to shoot it in the foot.

 

 

I guess the answer the title of this thread "Is there really NO simple fix for incompatability and mod errors?", the answer is yes there is. You are the answer. You answered yourself when you said that the reason you play this game is because of the mods. When I have a CTD, in almost 80% of the time, I can tell you within a minute or two why I crashed and what caused it. The other 20% of the time consist of things such as my computer and OS itself caused it or it was just one of those things you get because of so much modding. Of all my CTD's, I can very easily say that I can explain why over 95% of them have happened.

 

Finally, you need to get an understanding of what Nexus Mod Manager does lol. You're right, it doesn't help you when it comes to compatibility. That's because its not suppose to. It lets you install AND uninstall your mods SAFELY.