Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

To mod or not to mod...

Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
No reason not to mod games even on the first playthrough - especially with no-brainers like GMDX.

GMDX sucks ass.

Deus Ex doesn't need mods.

What's authoritative and historical is less important since most people are just playing the game and not writing a prestigious blog.

I don't give a shit how people mod their games. Just don't spread misinfo about the originals.
 

502

Learned
Joined
Mar 28, 2020
Messages
277
Location
Ankara
Usually just essential fixes and minor, pinpoint mods like UI adjustments. There are a few exceptions like JSawyer Ultimate and Stewie for New Vegas and GMDX for Deus Ex, but I also enjoy both games in their full vanilla glory. I used to play Deus Ex with Shifter, but most of its features like XP per defeated enemy (and by extension, a ton of extra XP per playthrough) feel popamole as hell in hindsight.

And not a fan of graphic mods with retexturing or remodeling. Lore friendly texture upscales, increased viewing distance, etc. are fine. Also widescreen support (including unstretched widescreen HUDs), preferably Hor+ widescreen support for 3D games. Once you take it too far it's a bottomless pit of immersive sunbeams, immersive curtains, immersive scrotums...

And looking back, I can't think of one single expansion sized fan mod I liked. Beats the me how people can be hyped for asinine drivel like The Frontier. I heard good things about Enderal but I've never played it.
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2020
Messages
19
No reason not to mod games even on the first playthrough - especially with no-brainers like GMDX.

GMDX sucks ass.

Deus Ex doesn't need mods.
This is the truth right here, Deus Ex is just right the way it is and messing with it in any way could only make the game worse. Some games are flawed gems that need some polish to shine as brightly as they should, those are the games you mod first time. Deus Ex is not one of those games and GMDX makes for a terrible first experience of the game.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,432
No reason not to mod games even on the first playthrough - especially with no-brainers like GMDX.

GMDX sucks ass.

Deus Ex doesn't need mods.
This is the truth right here, Deus Ex is just right the way it is and messing with it in any way could only make the game worse. Some games are flawed gems that need some polish to shine as brightly as they should, those are the games you mod first time. Deus Ex is not one of those games and GMDX makes for a terrible first experience of the game.

Why does it make for a terrible first experience?
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,110
Yes, mods are an absolute must, but within reason. Obviously the way our favorite industry is going the last decade and a half, there are very few games being released that are actually good, and most of them have massive flaws anyway. It would be a shame to lose these needles in the haystack to those flaws, so why not mod? However, my position on mods is this: to be worthy of modding, a game should only need several mods at most. This disqualifies shit like Skyrim, where people install 200+ mods instead of actually playing the game. Can't mod shit into gold, can only mod flawed gems.

But with that said, many of my all time favorites were played with mods, and without the mods, I might not have enjoyed them:

New Vegas - modded out hitpoint bloat, NPCs dodging bullets at close range
Kingdom Come: Deliverance - modded out masterstrike, adjusted combat to be more realistic and fun, increased world encounter rates
Deus Ex - modded up AI to be functional with Ash's mod
Bloodlines - modded with Wesp5's mod for tons of all-around improvements
Witcher 3 - modded enemies to defend, changing the flow of combat
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
I like mods that improve slight shortcomings but when modders are needed to fix bigger problems with a game, then it is probably always going to be shit.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,874
When is someone going to mod Dungeons of Magdarr?
UJl0fm5.jpg

EUEg9Jp.jpg

m7Lc9qB.jpg

QzARgpo.jpg

oh wait.... Search for Magdarr is a mod of Dungeons of Magdarr which is a mod od Dungeons of Death.... I think.

Sorry, no videos found of Magdarr combat.
 
Unwanted

Sweeper

Unwanted
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 28, 2018
Messages
2,394
Largely depends on the mod and the person(s) behind it. Bethesda games are very accessible to mod, this means you'll see a lot of trash.
But when I think of mods I think of Misery for Stalker CoP and 1.13 for JA2. Mods like that just downright improve the game. The trick is to find the good ones.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
12,877
Location
Eastern block
There are some game series that are synonymous with mods; hell I first learned what they were through Morrowind’s Construction set, reskins for the criminally underrated and forgotten Freedom Force and very interesting takes on gameplay like Ascension and Unfinished Business for Baldur’s Gate 2

Looking back at that crazy time of adding Storm Troopers to Morrowind, all sorts of crazy retextures, having some sort of semblance of balance to Oblivion’s level scaling with different mods, as well as getting the hottest dancing demonesses as companions for my char or simply adding back some unused content made modding just so much fun... in fact I think games like Oblivion I spend usually more time adding and testing mods than playing

But nowadays things have changed a bit; looking at my “gaming” laptop’s icons I see New Vegas, Morrowind, Daggerfall and well as Gothic, Arx Fatalis and Ultima Underworld
The funny thing is that the “newer” games are almost as vanilla as the older ones

Other than adding the usual unofficial patches, a few ease of life mods, a particular interesting (and lore compliant) mod here or there I have come realize they are mostly vanilla

It started because my “gaming” laptop is a 8 year old computer that was never much of a powerhouse so I decided to add the bare minimum of mods to games to have them run as well as possible with it’s limited power and so far that has been an awesome experience.
I spent last nite playing New Vegas, one of those nights were you are enjoying yourself so much that when my cat started bugging me to go to sleep I realized it was 3 am but I was just so engrossed

High poly bouncing breasts are cool and all but this experience has taught me that mods are like sprinkles on ice cream; they are good and all but too many just make a mess they are there to enhance the experience of the game itself not change it so much it becomes almost irreconcilable from the original game itself

So what are your thoughts guys? Are most “hardcore” gamers here interested in heavily modded experiences as to tailor the game to your liking or more focused on adding some tweaks and patches to have an arguably “better” version of the base game?
Modding classics > playing new games today
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Largely depends on the mod and the person(s) behind it. Bethesda games are very accessible to mod, this means you'll see a lot of trash.
But when I think of mods I think of Misery for Stalker CoP and 1.13 for JA2. Mods like that just downright improve the game. The trick is to find the good ones.
Yup, the original Misery mods (up to 1.2 before the can opener derp) enhanced the game game so much for me that I cannot fantom doing vanilla runs after such a fantastic experience... for Shadow of Chernobyl I am far less stringent
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
I don't care if it's my first playthrough. If I encounter something I want changed, I'll look up a mod for it.
I have a few rules for modding:
  1. No massive overhauls unless the modder is very autistic and explanatory on what his mod changes.
  2. Lore-friendly mods only.
  3. Compatibility is key.
  4. It has to blend in with the vanilla game to the best of its abilities. No new assets, and if it does add new assets, they have to look like something from the vanilla game.
  5. It has to be worth my time to download and install it. I try to avoid installing mods that address an "issue" I never cared for. "Now that you've pointed this out, I can't unsee it!" is a cancerous phrase.
I have like 200 mods installed in Morrowind, between mods and patches. I don't regret any minute of it.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,185
Location
Bjørgvin
Largely depends on the mod and the person(s) behind it. Bethesda games are very accessible to mod, this means you'll see a lot of trash.
But when I think of mods I think of Misery for Stalker CoP and 1.13 for JA2. Mods like that just downright improve the game. The trick is to find the good ones.

Or even to find a good version of 1.13.
 

Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi

Hoarder of loli kats./ Funny ^._.^= ∫
Patron
Joined
Mar 4, 2019
Messages
6,359
Location
Brasilien
Codex+ Now Streaming!
I have a few rules for modding:
  1. Lore-friendly mods only.
  2. It has to blend in with the vanilla game to the best of its abilities. No new assets, and if it does add new assets, they have to look like something from the vanilla game.
Kinda ironic taking in consideration your thot character on Fallout New Vegas that breaks immersion. :majordecline:
 

Funposter

Arcane
Joined
Oct 19, 2018
Messages
1,773
Location
Australia
Always play vanilla first, but after that, go nuts. I'd say that if a game needs mods to be enjoyable, it's probably not worth playing in the first place, but the simple act of building an enormous modlist for something like Skyrim can be quite an entertaining undertaking in and of itself. Indeed, modding that game is more entertaining than playing it, mainly because the modding tools are so robust and the community is so enormous. I'd say the only game which I genuinely enjoy in its vanilla state that I have also extensively modded is Morrowind, but that's mainly because it's my favourite game ever and I have a borderline autistic obsession with it. I tried to heavily mod New Vegas once, and by comparison, it wasn't really worth it. The fan-made content wasn't anywhere near up to par with the vanilla content so the only things I really ended up engaging with were cut content and some weapon mods, even after going to the trouble of massively overhauling it and installing texture packs etc. That game has a strong core, so fan content isn't as appealing as something like Morrowind, where it's perfectly viable to ignore the main quest and just do faction content especially with Tamriel Rebuilt installed or some of those faction overhaul mods like Pax Redoran.

It's also worth noting that most mods go completely overboard in whatever changes they make. Sometimes this is fun and adds to the charm in the case of a mod like Dawn of War's Ultimate Apocalypse, but usually it leaves you thinking "wow, I'm sure glad that the developers showed restraint and/or had a budget and schedule".
 
Last edited:

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Yup both New Vegas and Morrowind might be two of my favorite games and best examples of adding a little bit of flavor to the game with some mods and stay as close as posible to originally designed is very rewarding and fun to play.
Going all crazy with Oblivion trying to change it doesn’t make it a better game and in the end just makes for a the “polishing a turd” concept
 

user

Savant
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
835
If you didn't start playing games yesterday and are able to know how the mod you are adding will change the game, there is absolutely no reason not to mod from the get-go. As simple as that. So no, no reason to play vanilla and put yourself through a sub-optimal experience, unless you are certain the game is flawless the way it is.
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
If you didn't start playing games yesterday and are able to know how the mod you are adding will change the game, there is absolutely no reason not to mod from the get-go. As simple as that. So no, no reason to play vanilla and put yourself through a sub-optimal experience, unless you are certain the game is flawless the way it is.
So how would you know what to fix to your liking if you haven’t experienced the game already? For example I use a very simple mod for Morrowind that requires you to get 15 skillups for a level up instead of the usual 10... I tried the game and simply not worry about multipliers for levelups that felt like the most natural thing for me.
Other players try to go for the least used skills on their build as their main character skills to make sure they level up on their terms, seems like a very complicated way to do so but you only get that knowledge and preference through experiencing the game and then making your mind up on what exactly you want to change
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom