What are the most important modding aspects?

[Osvir]

Hello!

So, this popped up recently as a thought. What are the most important aspects of modding? And in discussing this topic, I was thinking about simplicity and accessibility.

First and foremost, I personally want "Portraits" to be a feature to customize depending on Status Effects. I've written quite a bit on it in the Portraits thread, so head on over there if you wish to read more about that or post an input yourself about it (post that feedback here or there, doesn't matter).

Furthermore, what else is important to you? I thought about making a poll but I believe this is an aspect that is very diverse depending on the modder/person and their own skillset. People with a higher skillset might like to play around with scripts, triggers, NPC's and Quest trees etc. etc. but what about the regular layman?

Some of mine that I think is important:

1. - Class "Kits":
This is something that I would really like to play around with. Being able to make a custom Class, or a Sub-Class of a Class (Maybe being able to create a sort of... Friar out of the Monk Class for instance). Never quite figured out how to make your own Class Kit in Baldur's Gate, not that the learning curve seemed too difficult, but this is something I think many would enjoy playing around with.

2. - Colors and Armor/Weapons
In Baldur's Gate you have a very limited amount of colors to play around with (4) when you color the armor and the characters skin and hair. I'd like to see even more than this. In Baldur's Gate you could open up Shadowkeeper and change colors of armors and the appearance thereof much more than you could in the game, I played around with it a little bit but it took quite some time to get it just right (had to save/load and jump in and out of the game over and over to get it just right). Is it possible to make this easier? And please, no buying dye's in-game that's one of the most stupidest mechanics I've ever seen.

3. - More Maps/Being able to make the world bigger
Being able to import new custom maps easily into the game and placing them somewhere on the map. Will the toolset have shadow maps that you can place and/or "restrictions" a la "You can't walk over this river". Can I import Wallpapers or similar and then make some sort of Vector Masking on the map to determine "This is where you can walk and this is where you can't walk" (Simple imports~). Will there be some mapmaking included in the toolset? Dungeons, Caves, Towers etc. etc.

 

4. - More Items/Out of Game "Crafting"
Being able to easily customize a weapon/armor/item and give it new properties and rename it. This I believe will be a little in the game already with crafting, but it is also fun to make your own items out-of-game for a specific Quest and plant it in the world as if it was part of the world etc. etc. crafting is fun and all but it doesn't have the same impact as creating something out-of-game. I can't Craft "Sword in the Stone" in-game, that's something I'd have to create out-of-game, place in the world, add triggers/scripts to it and make a Quest out of it. Two different forms of "Crafting Weapons".

 

5. - Quests & NPC's
Also something I believe many want to play around with. Dialogues, Stories, Shopkeepers, you name it. 

What is your most preferred aspects of modding and how could Obsidian consider the most simplistic methods of achieving this?

Edited September 22, 2013 by Osvir

[Silent Winter]

For me, the biggest thing would be the ability to add NPCs and Quests and create/edit dialogue.  This would include being able to add areas to the world map (or even extending the world map - but I think they'll want to keep the larger world under official control for PE2)

I'd also enjoy playing around with the visuals - but I think they mentioned having a good selection of colours for your armour and wotnot already in-game.

 

I've never used any of the mod-kits for BG2 but some of them do look interesting.

[JFSOCC]

Doodads and other artwork which you can use to dress up maps without being able to draw well.

The ability to script a wide range of complex triggers.

Adding abilities/features/traits should be possible as well.

[exodiark]

Naked Cadegund of course!

For me, the best mods are graphics, UI, and bugfix/restored-content mods.
Graphics mods like overhauled lighting, texture replacements, and many other UI enhancements. Of course they have to be lore-friendly.

I'm a bit averse with mod that changes the story content, add unofficial story, or add imbalanced items. It's better to make a new module if people want to write their own story, don't incorporate it with the main campaign.

I think releasing toolkit (like DA/NWN/Skyrim) is the best support a developer can give

Edited September 23, 2013 by exodiark

[Nirgal]

I agree with your recommendations. I just don't think they'll heve the budget or time to implement them. 

[Osvir]

@Nirgal: I think Obsidian said (getting unsure) that they would try to make a toolset for the game. Regardless, telling Obsidian "Hey! We want to play around with the content of your game. Could you make it more accessible if possible?" even if they don't make a toolset is "no harm done". The question is free.

@topic: Another idea, if there's an Arena or a Coliseum in-game. IF there is a toolset, could that be a sort of "template" and/or in some ways a map/level easy to spawn creatures and player spawn point on? Could be a neat little beginner modders "Challenge Mode" thing. Basically, the ability to create a Player made tournament~

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Naked Cadegund.

 

IMO, mechanics would be preferable, so some modder could tweak the game to my liking and I could benefit from their work. I'm not sure a toolset would work as well as in NWN/DAO/FONV/Skyrim, but it would be nice to have.

[Sacred_Path]

Preferrably nothing that touches the mechanics, unless something is obviously bugged, like a spell that invariably does 10000 points of damage to anything (I'm looking at you Arcanum).

[PrimeJunta]

The only mods I've genuinely enjoyed are either (a) completely new games built with the toolset of an existing one, such as some Neverwinter Nights mods, or (b) broken but promising games repaired, such as Wesp's Vampire: Bloodlines mod, the Gothic 3 Community Mod, or the KOTOR 2 Restoration Project.

 

I'm kinda hoping (b) won't be needed, and (a) needs access to just about everything. So my vote is all or nothing – anything in between holds little interest to me.

 

I especially don't care about cosmetic mods for clothing and armor and such. When I want to play dress-up with dolls, I invite my niece and her Barbie collection over.

[amarok]

Well, its hard to determine what "broken" is.

 

 

There's always something which could be better, bigger or more diversified, no matter how overall good or bad the original game is.

 

Take the BGs and the 'Sword Coast Stratagems' mods. They alter enemy AI significantly and make it react to the players actions, which isn't done that extensively in the vanilla games. I wouldn't want to miss that anymore. For me, an unmodded BG2 would be quite a 'broken' expierience because of bland/too easy/exploitable enemy AI, although the vanilla version is by no means a bad game.

 

With a big and dedicated community a mod-friendly game almost certainly will improve through modding over time, no matter how good the initial product already may be.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Important modding aspects for me is; no overpowered items or spells, not changing the NPCs stats or weapon proficiencies to make them better, not allowing NPCs to use weapons that their class isn't supposed to use, not being able to skip parts of a game because you can't be bothered doing it but still get all the xp and loot, and various other game breaking stuff and so forth ... Well I think that covers nearly every IE mod out there.

[Silent Winter]

Important modding aspects for me is; no overpowered items or spells, not changing the NPCs stats or weapon proficiencies to make them better, not allowing NPCs to use weapons that their class isn't supposed to use, not being able to skip parts of a game because you can't be bothered doing it but still get all the xp and loot, and various other game breaking stuff and so forth ... Well I think that covers nearly every IE mod out there.

and also covers what you don't want ... so what do you want?

 

I'm in favour of mods giving options at install (so I can install quest A without installing overpowered sword B).

Whilst I personally wouldn't want to install overpowered items or class-kits, I can see some people enjoying them.  So if someone wants to make a mod like that then meh, go ahead.

 

It's hard to say, yet, what mods might be good as we haven't even played the vanilla game.  But after checking out the different paths in that, it would be fun to have extra fan-made addons like quests, NPCs and balanced items.  Sure, they won't all be great, but like with the IE mods, there'll be some gems.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Silent Winter