I’m newish to modding games. I have been on a console my whole life and PC gaming is still relatively new to me. I’ve been modding a few games lately like Mass Effect and Baldurs Gate 3… It’s like a whole ass research assignment to figure out how to load mods. Each one different with different rules. I decided to not even bother with a significant number of mods because they just seemed mind numbingly confusing to set up.
I’m not complaining, I’m just wondering if I’m missing some trick or something.
Edit: I would like to thank everyone who answered. It appears that, nah. I’m not missing something. I am just a dummy. Probably just gonna take a while to get used to for me. But thank you very much <3
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Most games were never made to be modded. The communities are hacking mods into these games, many of which were even designed to make modding harder. (Because mods compete against sequels or something? I dunno. Intellectual property is a mental illness.) It’s not terribly surprising that games that weren’t meant to be modded have confusingly inconsistent methods for loading mods. Because those mods work fundamentally differently from game to game. If a mod happens to be easy-ish to install, chances are it’s either quite a simple mod (a model/texture replacement or some such, or just something that’s not terribly hard to mod) or a lot of work has been put into making it easier.
"If it was easy, it wouldn’t be a shortcut, it’d just be the way. "
Modding varies from game to game, but having been doing it for nearly 40 years now, I can say it has generally become easier in the titles that want you to and harder in the ones that don’t.
Some games lend themselves better to modding. Some are much more complicated to mod. Some games need a mod manager to do conflict checks and some games can just have mods piled on top of each other endlessly without issues.
Mods within certain game engines can pretty much be moved between games ofln the same engine often with very little adjustment.
I would say in modern modding it is usually fairly straightforward, but some games and some older mods definitely require some deep computer fuckery.
Stick to things you’re comfortable with and skip the ones you aren’t.
It also depends where you get the mod from as different sites offers different amount of help. On some sites you need to download, un zip, drag and drop files in different places and change files both in the mod and outside it, and other sites you just press a button and your good to go. Even when it is the same or similar mods.
Are you using nexus mod manager, vortex? Makes modding somewhat friendlier
Use Nexusmods and their Vortex mod manager. It simplifies it a lot, though you may have to watch a quick tutorial video or two. It’s nothing that you won’t learn, though.
Certain other games may have other mod loaders just for them, that you can use. KSPs CKAN comes to mind, or Curseforge for Minecraft. A lot of games handle mods through the Steam Workshop.
In the case of using mod loaders most of the stuff you will have to do yourself will be limited to keeping mods updated, resolving conflicts, and managing load orders (where applicable).
You’re not missing anything. Heavy modding of older games PC can be a pain in the ass.
You can usually find a somewhat coherent and structured guide that will give you a step by step process, but will still be time-consuming (and there will likely be exceptions or outdated information).
The best option is to keep mods to minimum unless you know what you are doing and it’s a game that you play on a permanent basis.
Genuinely not had a problem with mods, and I’ve been PC gaming for decades. Of course sometimes mods don’t work but thats life. Just be patient, you’ll get it done.
Decent mods have a readme file - follow the steps strictly - no skipping thinking you know better - and they should work.
Also look on YouTube or search online for guides - people often provide step by step guides to mod games purely out of a love for gaming.
Keep going - mods can be great, and its one of the many benefits of PC gaming. You’ll get there!
Nexus’s Vortex will be your friend. The Steam Workshop will be your best friend from elementary school.
Vortex works with Nexus mods damn near flawlessly. It’s pretty easy to set up as there are instructions to guide you through the process.
Workshop is literally just a single click to download and install mods to your games. Sometimes you may have to activate the mods in the games themselves.
Other than that, I’ve found modding to get easier the more you do it. You start to see patterns and pick up on where certain files should go or how they should interact and work. People will make their own mod managers for specific games (I have the Sonic Adventure 2 Mod Manager for instance) as well.
Relatable, Mods do be tricky to implement
For every mod you add, complexity usually increases exponentially.
Depending on the game, difficulty also varies: modding stardew valley is joy (117 mods in a pack, easy afternoon sipping tea), modding skyrim less so (oh god,these two amazing mods tweak the same tree, time to go patch hunting, 2 weeks later you play it only to spot obscure graphical glitches, all hail wabbajack automation!), trying to make a working multiplayer mod pack for rimworld is pure suffering (why do you hate me, why do two compatible mods generate mass instability?!? 4 months of bug hunting and unsalvageable runs due to strange mod interactions, gave up for now).
