To mod or not to mod - lessons learned

[Tahaan]

Modding is an interesting aspect of the game.  I read a post recently where the poster criticise people for saying that they won't ever mod without even trying it out.

I am too lazy to try and find that post now but it touches on something I've been thinking about.

Firstly I mostly agree with the sentiment that one should not be close-minded about things ... but I also feel that people often have a good idea of what they would or would not enjoy - without even needing to try it out.

I played about 750 hours before I was ready to try mods.  I installed a bunch of mods and almost immediately regretted it. It changed the game in ways that spoiled the fun.  It was no longer true to the spirit of the game.  The two biggest culprits was a mod that adds many new zeds and one that changes the cars to add a load of new car "wrecks".  But other mods also added to the degraded experience.

A few lessons learned:

1. It is easy to criticise the game design, mechanics and specifics based on what you imagine would be better.  In practice it often is not.

2. Mods are very often of crap quality.  And the mods that are of good quality does not neccesarily automatically fit in with the style of the game (eg shiny polished cars left abandoned on a road amongst so many rusty wrecks and ruins of buildings.

3. Un-installing a mod is a dangerous thing.  For pete's sake if you have one of the wasteland nukes in a storage chest in your base, and you remove that mod, then start playing your game again, expect to lose your base.  Opening that storage chest with that item that no longer exists causes a chunk reset on your base.  This is how you loose everything.

4. It is not all negative.  But you need to put some effort into mods and try them one by oneso you can see how they affect the game play and be able to keep just the ones that you do enjoy.

I am not ready yet to try out any of the complete overhaul mods.  I want to try those eventually but not yet.

Long story short I now play with only a small number of mods.  Mostly the bigger backpack because I feel this game is not about inventory management, longer loot bags because otherwise I get nearly nothing in a horde night, backpack buttons and HUD.  Occasionally I try other mods but few of them are really on my recommended list - just my personal experience.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Well it´s generally a rule of thumb in every game, that if a save is modded, it´s not a good idea to go back to vanilla with that save. For testing a mod, better make a seperate game for testing it.

What you also should always do when modding, is a copy of your vanilla game files, before you change anything. Wich is again importnant no matter wich game you play.

I am using only small ones. Like compopack for more different POI´s and one for more zombies. Might try custom zombies also soon.

 

[FileMachete]

You make some good points @Tahaan.  While I haven't had any significant issues modding 7dtd, the big 'Rule #1' for me when modding is like @pApA^LeGBa said, always back up the orig/vanilla stuff and expect you'll need to wipe & reinstall.

Having played the major full re-works I can say they were all pretty amazing. Haven't played any (yet) for A18 so can't comment on current states. But if any strike your fancy you might be very pleasantly suprised, knowing in advance they're quite different than vanilla of course

Personally I tweak vanilla with my own custom modlets, like increased mag size for marksman rifle, narrowing the shotgun spread to be realistic, adjust some stack sizes, that kind of thing.

To me a couple things about 7dtd modding really stands out. TFPs seem much more supportive of mods, in general, than a lot of devs, & while they're not shy about saying X or Y is something for modders to add/do, they -haven't- left basic core things up to the mod community to 'fill in' for them. Add the whole "modlets" bit and there's a really nice cohabitation going on.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Most people are not game designers, want to have changes anyway, but don't or even can't really overthink what's the deeper follow ups of these changes.

Imho bigger bagpack takes a lot of the game away. The game is not about inventory management but the game is about you deciding what you want to take and what to  leave behind or if you invest more time in hauling, to keep some items anyway.

I'd only use mods that change things i'd want to have changed. I mostly skip mods that only do graphic changes, like adding or changing the look of car wrecks.

And on very important rule of using mods: NEVER EVER remove a mod used in a running game until you EXACTLY know what you are doing (and what the mod does). A mod that only polishes things might be removed savely. Removing a mod that adds items to the game will most likely brake the game.

All complete overhaul mods i tried yet are much better than using a bunch of small mods. They are more consistent, change a lot and make the use of further mods often unneccessary. So basically they are much easier to use, not harder. But as they are total conversions, they will play different. They provide a "complete" experience of the game. So never ever try a total conversion and add further mods right away without even trying out how the total conversion plays.

Using more/many small mods is an issue of testing. Only use few of them, try it out, then maybe add further ones. Just throwing 20 mods into the game at once, that just crossed your way and looked somehow interesting is not a good idea. I also tried out many mods that didn't work (for me) at all. Especially mods that add new drivable vehicles. Most times you don't need a full playthrough for testing. Just start a new game with some mods and use the debug/cheat menu to test them.

Imho modding in 7d2d is not that hard. The problem is more like some people use it.

 

[Xtrakicking]

Imho modding in 7d2d is not that hard. The problem is more like some people use it.

It has become easier to install mods from other people, while the actual act of creating a mod for yourself has become trickier, in my opinion. If I'm not mistaken, Workshop support is planned for the future, so there might still be a lot left for future modding in this game.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

I ment "using mods" not creating some. As the OP also referred to just using them.

 

[n2n1]

Try global mods - they are balanced within themselves.

Not all mods are equally good and high-quality.  Everyone has their own threshold of perception of this.

 

[ElCabong]

The only mod I have, that I always use, is one that makes your vehicles go faster. I despise the generic bicycle because the damn thing is only a little faster than I can walk without the mod.

After you play this game long enough and I am almost there, mods can change it into something different and bring new life into the game.

The next update, hopefully that will be A19, you'll have to get rid of them all because they're probably not going to work. Even if they appear to work  you shouldn't take a chance until you give the modders a time to fix them.

 

[Tin]

1. Yep, when put into practice, not all ideas are gold. However, not everyone is just "imagining" an idea and just expressing their opinions. Some actually put their ideas into practice, then say something. It even happens at times with "real" devs that their ideas are not all gold.

2. Eye of the beholder. To them who made it? They like what they did. Not everyone needs to like it. For some it fills a niche, others it dose not. Is it cool that it hits the mark for many? yeah. However not all modders release stuff just to please everyone. They made something they like so they shared it, because it may be something others would like. Also, not all of them are looking to maintain TFP theme or ascetics.

3. Uninstalling a mod is not dangerous. It dangerous when people who installed them, forget to wipe everything, and start clean. Hey its a fun pimp motto every major build. They even tell you to "start clean" before running a new build, or even just give a valid bug report. Now why would that be?  Even to this day, TFP say something like "It shouldn't mess up your game but start fresh just to be sure". Why? because even they are not 100% certain their build won't mess something up. Why would mods be any different?

Sorry you messed up and needed to do a clean install but it happens.

4. Glad your experience isn't dissuading you from possibly try out other mods in the future. 

Something I think you should keep in mind.

Not all modders have the same experience level. The strength and weaknesses can vary drastically between them. Might be why even TFP hire designated people, to fill designated roles. Some mods are nothing more then modders doing proof of concept mods, or just seeing what they can do in the meantime, waiting till the game finally goes gold.    

 

[Dethar]

It is amazing to me that some people wont try mods. Just looking at people posting for A19 early access and SO many started single digit of A? to even A1 and only have hundreds of hours. That tells me they get bored with it and should use mods. I start A15 and have at least 3x as many hours, because of mods. When I first started I played about week and half, figured game out, got bored and and started using overhauls mods. Lasted little longer in vanilla Ark before moving to overhaul mods.

 

[doughphunghus]

As someone who has made some small mods for this game....

Reasons to mod: Chasing the high

I made them primarily for my own use, originally, before making them available to others.  Once you play the game several times through and "get to the end" (whatever you consider that to be, usually when you go "yeah, I've played this out, done all I wanted to do, survived until Day 100", etc) you start to realize there are some things you wished the game was like ( or you want a harder/more challenging game.  Yes, you can change the settings to make it harder (and I do!) but there are some aspects of the vanilla game that I really like, and I want "more of" that experience.  For me, I keep chasing that "first time I played the game" feel where everything was an unknown and adventuring and staying alive was difficult/worrying. Without mods I, personally, go "oh yeah, X item is important at this stage of the game keep it, dump this stuff as it's too early to hang onto.  Oh look, I know that POI inside and out and I don't want to go in there yet as I know what it takes to clear it.  Hey, there's that zombie and I know he moves like this and I'm not worried about him since I can outrun him"

Because of all of this, I generally start a new game "with all the mods I like at this moment" and play it out (or until I get bored, some new mods come out, etc). I personally don't plan to have a "forever or long lasting game" where I get to keep all my stuff.

Reasons not to mod: Gameplay stability/Not wanting to deal with weird stuff

Above I mentioned not "having a forever game".  Yeah, that was actually one of the things that made the game fun when I first started playing. Searching/building/planning out a "base" and making it "home" and caring about how it was built and spending time making it awesome is actually something I miss as I don't do it as much.  Most of my modded games I just find a POI and reinforce it a bit and then move on, making a lot of small bases all over the place because I know the modded game is likely a temporary thing and not something I'm going to sink massive time into..... because I'm going to start another game with different/more mods

Additionally: a lot of the points above to "not mod" above are *definitely* true.  I've had some mods/overhauls I've played that work "great", but sometimes you're playing and a few days in suddenly errors start popping up, game crashes for some reason, or recipes cannot be made because something is missing (mods colliding with one another, mod bug, or some reason).

Additionally: I personally see an issue with the modding today in that there isn't an easy way to "force" a mod to be for a certain version of the game.  There's no "pre launch checking" that the game does to say "this mod is not compatible with X version of the game, never load it and warn the user before starting".  Currently this is all done by trial and error (load it and hope not to see errors), or the modder documenting what version the mod *should* work on (usually whatever version it was built for). Since the modding API isn't super stable (the game is not "gold" yet), every time a new version ( or any update) comes out, mods may no longer work properly.  Modders don't want to spend all day testing their mods every time the game updates, so (me personally) either test every now and then, test after a major release, or just wait for people to submit "WTF is this?" bug requests when the mod breaks.

Afterthoughts: Hope for the future?

I hope that modding this game gets a little easier/stable as I think the main issues are that right now there's not an easy way to know if a mod is "stable" and works perfectly on a specific version of the game.  Hopefully once the game goes "gold" and the modding API stabilizes then the modding community will be able to put out some quality mods (both in the mod functionality as well as the graphics) and the "not so good or no longer supported ones" will fade away. Additionally, maybe some more modding tools will be built to make it easy to know if mods are compatible with each other before starting a game with them, or at least know what the mod is doing, at a lower level than "adding stuff" like "WARNING: This mod adds new blocks X,Y, Z to the game, do not remove it after launching game" or maybe a set of filters to just filter these "intrusive" mods out if you want to remove a mod later.  I really hope the "good" mods get grouped into a few types:

- Tiny modlets: Things that just change/add a few things. Hopefully there will be quite a few of these, but not like 500+

- Mod Packs: like the existing "creature packs, vehicle packs, etc".  I hope the community can come together and put all this stuff in 1 place vs having 50 possibly "not working well with each other" ones.  Its going to take a lot of time, but it's being worked on (hope it works out!)

- Overhauls: "themed" massive overhauls, that use the tiny modlets/Packs and add some custom stuff (that cannot use modlet API).  I personally believe the overhauls will be the shining star of the modding community (they're already pretty cool) as its usually a very dedicated person/group who are working hard and putting a LOT of time making the entire overhaul look and work "well" and also change the play style of the game and make it unique.  And they also can incorporate the packs and modlets from others and fully test them for you before making them available.  I personally hope in the future that I can just chose an overhaul to play and I can be happy as it's a "new game to me"

 

[Dethar]

I personally have not had many issues with even overhauls. Then again i dont run first version put out for an alpha. Like when WotW first dropped for A18, I just kept playing DF. There were ton of issues. Waited a few updates, and had no game breaking issues.

Edit: ok i did have issue WotW and Stalliondens lootable objects modlet. Guessing Dwall changed ids for those objects.

 

[Roland]

My own mod has balance problems. There is zero reason to participate in the blood moon horde other than just for the fun of it. I hope to someday set up a reward system for blood moon but until it is possible to do so there is that drawback. 

 

[Darthjake]

My own mod has balance problems. There is zero reason to participate in the blood moon horde other than just for the fun of it. I hope to someday set up a reward system for blood moon but until it is possible to do so there is that drawback. 

Just out of curiosity what does your mod do?  I totally agree with the bloodmoon statement, I've proven I can do it, and currently it adds no enjoyment to my game (SP), if I'm in a MP game I'll tolerate the bloodmoon if that's what the other players want.

 

[Roland]

My mod removes XP from the game. You gain skill points simply by surviving a full day (60 minutes) regardless of what activities you decide to do. If you die the timer resets so you if don't stay alive you won't gain skillpoints. The problem is that without XP there is zero reason to confront the horde. What I want to do at some point is award skillpoints for killing a certain number of enemies during the bloodmoon event or something like it so that there is an incentive to actually fight. In my mod, running away and avoiding will net you exactly the same number of skillpoints as confronting and fighting. That's the issue.

BTW....afaik the hooks for OnHordeNightStart and OnHordeNightEnd are still not connected.....

 

[Damocles]

My mod removes XP from the game. You gain skill points simply by surviving a full day (60 minutes) regardless of what activities you decide to do. If you die the timer resets so you if don't stay alive you won't gain skillpoints. The problem is that without XP there is zero reason to confront the horde. What I want to do at some point is award skillpoints for killing a certain number of enemies during the bloodmoon event or something like it so that there is an incentive to actually fight. In my mod, running away and avoiding will net you exactly the same number of skillpoints as confronting and fighting. That's the issue.

BTW....afaik the hooks for OnHordeNightStart and OnHordeNightEnd are still not connected.....

Thats what looting killed Zombies would be actually needed for. Making them drop better items during that event. Its a logical incentive then to make the player fight them.

 

[n2n1]

1. Yep, when put into practice, not all ideas are gold. However, not everyone is just "imagining" an idea and just expressing their opinions. Some actually put their ideas into practice, then say something. It even happens at times with "real" devs that their ideas are not all gold.

2. Eye of the beholder. To them who made it? They like what they did. Not everyone needs to like it. For some it fills a niche, others it dose not. Is it cool that it hits the mark for many? yeah. However not all modders release stuff just to please everyone. They made something they like so they shared it, because it may be something others would like. Also, not all of them are looking to maintain TFP theme or ascetics.

3. Uninstalling a mod is not dangerous. It dangerous when people who installed them, forget to wipe everything, and start clean. Hey its a fun pimp motto every major build. They even tell you to "start clean" before running a new build, or even just give a valid bug report. Now why would that be?  Even to this day, TFP say something like "It shouldn't mess up your game but start fresh just to be sure". Why? because even they are not 100% certain their build won't mess something up. Why would mods be any different?

Sorry you messed up and needed to do a clean install but it happens.

4. Glad your experience isn't dissuading you from possibly try out other mods in the future. 

Something I think you should keep in mind.

Not all modders have the same experience level. The strength and weaknesses can vary drastically between them. Might be why even TFP hire designated people, to fill designated roles. Some mods are nothing more then modders doing proof of concept mods, or just seeing what they can do in the meantime, waiting till the game finally goes gold.    

100 agree. I don't even have anything to add.

 

[Gazz]

BTW....afaik the hooks for OnHordeNightStart and OnHordeNightEnd are still not connected.....

Dunno but <requirement name="IsBloodMoon" operation="GTE" value="1"/> works so you could adjust zombie drops, loot quality... lots of stuff.

Not even going to suggest this for the vanilla game because they new meta would be to "prepare" access to untouched containers, then during BM you would run around clicking the loot button and "open" as many of them as you can.

 

[Ornias]

My own mod has balance problems. There is zero reason to participate in the blood moon horde other than just for the fun of it. I hope to someday set up a reward system for blood moon but until it is possible to do so there is that drawback. 

Your mod is the one I most play. I made an afk base for horde night for this reason. Just make horde night zombies increase loot drops/quality. I know I suggest that like its a quick fix, and I know it probably isn't, just my suggestion.

Dunno but <requirement name="IsBloodMoon" operation="GTE" value="1"/> works so you could adjust zombie drops, loot quality... lots of stuff.

Not even going to suggest this for the vanilla game because they new meta would be to "prepare" access to untouched containers, then during BM you would run around clicking the loot button and "open" as many of them as you can.

Spends 7 days putting up ladders on all skyscrapers and POI loot rooms. 

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Your mod is the one I most play. I made an afk base for horde night for this reason. Just make horde night zombies increase loot drops/quality. I know I suggest that like its a quick fix, and I know it probably isn't, just my suggestion.

If you afk-skip bloodmoon anyway, because you see no reason to really fight a bloodmoon, why don't you (both) then completely turn off bloodmoon?

If it's the bloodmoon that makes you need to build a afk-safe bloodmoon (cheese) base, bloodmoon still has a reason....

I'm really ambivalent about bloodmoon. On the one hand it's useless, it doesn't drop loot, it doesn't give a solid amount of XP since you only get XP if you kill the Zs yourself but not if they killed by spikes or traps, basically it's only a bulletsink. On the other hand, preparing for the next bloodmoon is the only real task i have left. Without bloodmoon i usually reach a point with sustainable supplies in week 3 or 4. If not prepare for bloodmoon there wouldn't be any pressure on doing anything.