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To mod or not to mod...

d1r

Busin 0 Wizardry Alternative Neo fanatic
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I unironically enjoy spending hours upon hours downloading hundreds of mods and then making them work together in harmony. It's a journey, an experience, something close to divinity I dare say to perfect a game with various modifications. To completely change a game that is about adventuring and whatnot to something entirely different is a joy that transcends all others if you ask me. Hell, even games that allow minimal modding are alright in the end. Just the fact that you can make changes, however small they may be, is enough if you ask me.
I wish Todd Howard were a woman and I were her husband.

Absolutely, and inherently based. My Fallout New Vegas mod setup is seven years old, and it was an absolute blast to fine tune it to perfection (crashes all 40 minutes instead of 15). And yeah, if the game gives you the tools, then I always try to tailor good games to my liking.
 

Carrion

Arcane
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Jun 30, 2011
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3,648
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Lost in Necropolis
As a rule of thumb I go vanilla on first playthrough, although there are some exceptions. I usually don't bother with modding unless there are substantial reasons for doing so. I tend to favor autistically detailed but still somewhat conservative mechanical overhauls over everything else, something that retains the spirit of the original (or at least doesn't butcher it) while still making a big difference, usually by rebalancing different gameplay elements, adding new features, fixing the most obvious developer oversights and/or making the game more challenging. I might install some minor cosmetic stuff to complement that, but that's about it.

Modding a game for the first playthough seems increasingly tempting nowadays, though, since especailly big-budget games tend to squander their potential by overly casualizing their gameplay or having nonsensical cargo cult "RPG" mechanics that I just can't stand.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Aug 4, 2007
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Bjørgvin
Games should be mastered before modded. Modability should unlock like Nightmare and Hell in Diablo.

Not if if the game is totally level scaled, or a (hypotethical) JRPG with great game mechanics but also vomit inducing graphics that can be replaced with a mod.
 
Last edited:

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
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Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
I don’t play level scaled games. Graphic mods of course are fine.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
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Oct 5, 2010
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14,118
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New Vegas
Only mods I really use are things like widescreen hacks or UI tweaks. I tend to stay away even from texture mods, as I want to see the game as originally designed.

There's a lot of recent games where I feel a rebalance could really make them a lot better though, so I've been weakening on my stance. Witcher 3 is a huge obvious example. However I feel like most of those mods add a bunch of tedium for autists, as much as they add genuine rebalancing, so I dunno.
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
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Aug 3, 2019
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London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
Also I could write an essay about how much i respect the people that made Bag of tricks for Pathfinder:Kingmaker

Yeah that's a particularly good one. Big complex RPGs should always have the equivalent of Bag of Tricks for people who want to fiddle around with builds and try things out without the tedium of having to start the game with a new character and labouriously go through the early levels for the umpteenth time.

With RPGs it usually goes like this: I start a "scratchpad" character just to learn the ropes, the little pecularities, then at some point I'll start a "serious" character that I'm invested in roleplaying wise, and I'll go through the game properly with that character. Then at the same time I like to fiddle about with all sorts of other builds and characters too, just to see what's what - knowing I'll never spend the time levelling up every class and type of build, life's too short for that, but it's nice to explore the options and see what the devs have done.
 

Max Damage

Savant
Joined
Mar 1, 2017
Messages
657
Plenty RPGs play much better with some essential tweaks on your first playthrough. Then there's vanilla New Vegas which I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy :D
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
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1,870,144
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Searching for my kidnapped sister
To mod or not to mod, it's a personal preference.

Leaving aside quality-of-life mod, which mostly deal with mechanics or adding something to make life easier...

Texture mod is purely personal. It mostly deal with something that bug you visually. Like, I can not bear to see the brown uniform of NCR, or the idiotic Legion armor, or everything else... So I mostly leave my Courier running around bare ass naked (same with Willow companion). But based on the various clothes mods for FNV, it's obviously lots and lots of people like to dress up their Couriers. See: personal~

Mechanics mod is actually harder and depen a lot on modders' competence. Some write well enough that the added writings dont kill player's interest to continue. Some make extra content interesting enough that we can ignore they violate original game direction. E.G Equilibrium and Redux is mostly changing a lot of original FTBOS designs; and mod 1.3 change entirely one big batch of JA2's original feature: AP25 increase to AP100.

Content (writings) mod is much much harder and depend on whether players and modders match each other. I mostly dont deal with content mod~
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
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Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
People are cheating themselves out of the whole gaming experience.

Devs: you know games in this genre have been doing XYZ wrong, I’m writing new game to address XYZ.

Modtard: these games always suck at XYZ, let me get some mods for XYZ. Plays game. Game suxxors!
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
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Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Also I could write an essay about how much i respect the people that made Bag of tricks for Pathfinder:Kingmaker

Yeah that's a particularly good one. Big complex RPGs should always have the equivalent of Bag of Tricks for people who want to fiddle around with builds and try things out without the tedium of having to start the game with a new character and labouriously go through the early levels for the umpteenth time.

With RPGs it usually goes like this: I start a "scratchpad" character just to learn the ropes, the little pecularities, then at some point I'll start a "serious" character that I'm invested in roleplaying wise, and I'll go through the game properly with that character. Then at the same time I like to fiddle about with all sorts of other builds and characters too, just to see what's what - knowing I'll never spend the time levelling up every class and type of build, life's too short for that, but it's nice to explore the options and see what the devs have done.

This is the gateway drug to theorycrafting hell. You don’t know what the fuck you’re even talking about unless you’ve played the fucking game.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
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Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Best mods are enrichment of games you already love, like Rise and Rule for Civ.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
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5,687
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Perched on a tree
Modding has come to preclude the understanding of, let the alone appreciation for, the logic of a game’s design.

Games should be mastered before modded. Modability should unlock like Nightmare and Hell in Diablo.

Play a shit game with shitty gameplay.
Unlock a higher difficulty than intended
Use hit and run on every fucking monster because the game is too hard
Is happy

Beati pauperes spiritu...
 

Nano

Arcane
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Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,647
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
People are cheating themselves out of the whole gaming experience.

Devs: you know games in this genre have been doing XYZ wrong, I’m writing new game to address XYZ.

Modtard: these games always suck at XYZ, let me get some mods for XYZ. Plays game. Game suxxors!
What the fuck are you even talking about?
 

Daemongar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,706
Location
Wisconsin
Codex Year of the Donut
Eh, it depends on when you play the game. If you play it upon release, play it as released. If you play it years later, patch whatever bugs you can. I did not play VtM:B when it came out. When I did play it, I took codex advice and modded the game. Good idea. Playing a game that crashes or whatnot would poison the experience. If we all played Bloodlines on release, it wouldn't be ranked as high.

Same for Anachronox. I don't think I played unmodded FO:NV but only for the 4GB fix and stutter fix. That was required. On future playthroughs I added the unofficial patchs and such. Later playings added high res textures, naked broads, and random fixes.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
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Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,131
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
People are cheating themselves out of the whole gaming experience.

Devs: you know games in this genre have been doing XYZ wrong, I’m writing new game to address XYZ.

Modtard: these games always suck at XYZ, let me get some mods for XYZ. Plays game. Game suxxors!
What the fuck are you even talking about?

If you're too slow to follow just ignore.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Some mods are just turning a good game into a great one (Temple+ for ToEE is essential to any replay)

No, it isn't. And as it pertains to commentary, I've promoted and popularized ToEE/Temple+ more than you or anyone else put together. I will be no.1 ranked on ToEE when I'm done. My blog garners twice the viewership of Co8.

Some mods are just fixing so many bugs and adding some gameplay enhancements they're also compulsory for a replay (sfall, fixit for Fallout 1 & 2)

There has never been any need to mod Fallout or Fallout 2.
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Plenty RPGs play much better with some essential tweaks on your first playthrough. Then there's vanilla New Vegas which I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy :D
Heh yes, I never played vanilla New Vegas; started with all the unofficial patches, stutter remover and most pf the INI tweaks and fixes so when I read or see comments about the game beign so buggy and crashing non stop I am surprised that in both of my PC installations with more than 300 hours I probably had 3 crashes overall and maybe a dozen bugs that had me reload my game to fix
 

xuerebx

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
Messages
1,001
Content (writings) mod is much much harder and depend on whether players and modders match each other. I mostly dont deal with content mod~

I don't think I've ever seen a good mod which changes the writing. If the game has good writing, a mod doesn't change or add better writing. If the game has shit writing, a mod doesn't change or add better writing to a considerable degree which makes a difference in the grand scheme of the game.

Then again, I don't actively look for mods which changes the writing so I could be overlooking some good mods out there.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
It depends on the game. I usually check if there are bugfix unofficial patches and see if there are better texture mods on a first playthrough. In the case of games like D:OS2, though, I modded it heavily on my first playthrough and don't regret it.
 

Chippy

Arcane
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Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Content (writings) mod is much much harder and depend on whether players and modders match each other. I mostly dont deal with content mod~

I don't think I've ever seen a good mod which changes the writing. If the game has good writing, a mod doesn't change or add better writing. If the game has shit writing, a mod doesn't change or add better writing to a considerable degree which makes a difference in the grand scheme of the game.

Then again, I don't actively look for mods which changes the writing so I could be overlooking some good mods out there.

If an alie landed on this planet with a fetish for the CRPG, and instantly gravitated to the IE games; he/she/they would probably pack up and go home as soon as they realised nobody has re-written SOD.

That to me was the limus test that the modding community can't write. In the sens that no other game deserved to be re-written more than that pile of shit.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,863
I recall some games had awful sound, interface, and music. I can turn off fx/music but interface I'll scream at.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,863
Oh, i dunno. After you finish a game vanilla enough times and you autistically want more out of it thrn why not mod it or even cheat it? You bought it so fuck around with it. I recall when i was a kid i didn't have much more than a paper route and an old colecocision and a nes with only a handful of games. Couldn't really mod the games but we could fuck with display, color, tint, brightness, vhold etc. we could play SMB in hell, on the frigid worlds, in brightland, nearly pitch black. What was a trip was vhold and making thr window so flat. It was like moon jumping and hard as hell to gauge jumps. Playing on a shit channel with lots of snow rf interference was tricky too.

Now you have romhackers, modders, and more. There's a romhack for the shitty nes version of ultima 3 EXODUS. Its an improvement the few of them. Game is still glitchy imho.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
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Platypus Planet
Usually my philosophy has been that if a game needs (many) mods to be playable then it's probably shit and not worth it. That said if it's just bugfixes or some kind of system updates to make an old game run on modern machines instead of fixing lots of poor gameplay design then that's obviously fine. Even then I've started to use a mod to replace Morrowind's broken leveling system in recent years, though I've played the vanilla game for almost two decades now so I think I can allow myself to play the game with, at least what I consider to be, a better leveling system. I still prefer to enjoy my games as close to the developer's vision as possible. Even texture mods are something I usually avoid. It's fun for me to see how good some old games can look with more modern resolutions and texturing, but I like the look and feel of old graphics.
 

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