Bethesda was under no obligation to talk to these mod devs beforehand. But it sure makes them look bad. As a recent comparable, Concerned Ape was open and communicative with all the mod devs before releasing his latest patch for Stardew Valley, a game that is just about as old as Fallout 4.
Bethesda has become a literal laughingstock at this point in time and it’s just funny to point at them every time they rack up another L.
They had no obligation, but there was no reason they couldn’t take the minimal effort and put out a blog post saying that the update would break mods. The modding scene is the only thing keeping Bethesda’s games relevant (except New Vegas, but that’s not really Bethesda’s achievement).
The modding scene is the only thing keeping Bethesda’s games relevant
The recent Fallout series is probably doing a good job.
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They’ve learned something. They learned that they can be as shitty as they want to be, and still the modders will bail them out. I trust this move now will also change nothing in that regard.
Starfield may have changed that somewhat, apparently its a fucking pain to work with.
Still sold a bajillion copies though.
I think all they’ve really learned is that they can push out whatever game they want, well-made or not, and it’ll sell.
Give it time studios rarely fall with one or two bad actions, opinions are turning on Bethesda and unless they get their shit together theyll fall apart. Id say they are at a crossroads of either reform or become modern bioware.
I feel Blizzard should’ve been that already, but it seems like they’re still going strong after quite a bunch of really bad moves.
If you don’t think they learned anything, then you’re paying attention to the wrong stuff.
Every single update breaks mods that rely on a script extender because it changes the game’s binary.
Those compatibility issues were always quickly rectified. The last time a script extender was borked to the point where the developer had to make an announcement was Skyrim AE.
If all they do is add more Creation Club content, all that happens is the functions people are hooking end up the same, but at different addresses. After the first few Creation Club updates, tools were made to automate mapping old addresses to new ones, and most script-extender-based mods could be made to work with just an Address Library update, which said which new addresses to use.
This is not that kind of update. The compiler version and settings used have changed, so functions, even ones that do the same thing, end up with different machine code at different addresses. This means a lot of mods will need making from scratch, and a lot of mods will need lots of work tracking down which functions need hooking now and how to do it even if there’s still stuff that’s salvageable.
Some people are conveniently forgetting this.
Yes, but $.
Bethesda communicated beforehand for script extender Skyrim. Gave them an NDAA and allowed them to update the extender before the anniversary update release.
Don’t know why they didn’t do the same for Fallout
Stardew is such a good example given the community is similarly mod-centric
I recently had to find out that a mod author of a couple mods I was happily using on my PS5 copy of Skyrim removed their mods entirely because of another batch of greedy monetisation efforts from Bethesda, trying to monetise mods even further. Just fuck those guys man
Wait…mods for ps5?
The console versions of Skyrim, minus Switch, have mod support. They are limited in scope because they don’t allow for external resources to be used for the mods - maybe Xbox does, I don’t know - but they still offer a bunch of QoL improvements, visual upgrades, quests, weapons, spells etc. Some well-known mods like the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch exist on console and some well-known mod authors like Elianora or Juliha also publish their mods on console. It’s pretty great actually. They can make your game look and feel really good.
The mods I was referring to that were removed are Mysticism and Adamant by SimonMagus616 (at least their Reddit handle) that completely overhaul spells and perks in Skyrim. I understand their decision to remove them, but my playthrough feels a little less cool now as a result.
Fallout London is whinging but the real loser is the Fallout 4 Script Extender mod, upon which so many other mods relied.
Fallout London release or no, this has broken a massive number of mods for Fallout 4 that relied on the Script Extender.
That’s actually the bigger story here, that Bethesda declined to communicate with the modders who made the backbone of a lot of other mods.
From the Fallout 4 Script Extender home page:
The 2024-04-25 Fallout 4 update (1.10.980 and later) has broken F4SE and the rest of the native code modding scene similarly to Skyrim’s “Anniversary Edition” patch. I am working on an update and cannot currently offer a timeline for its availability, nor whether there will be any critical technical issues that would block an update. Do not email with questions.
Fixing the script extender itself won’t take that long as it doesn’t need to hook that many functions (although depending on how much free time people have and whether there are any surprises, it could still take longer than most people expect). Fixing all the mods that depend on it will take much longer, as between them, they hook lots more functions than the script extender itself, and with this update, it’s not just a case of most functions being the same, but at a slightly different address (as was typical with creation club updates, which tools could help with), but instead lots of functions have changed slightly due to using an updated compiler, and lots of functions have been inlined differently (so instead of just existing once, they get copied into every function that uses them, and then optimised differently in each place based on the surrounding code).
The solution that Skyrim players came up with was to downgrade to older versions. For example, Skyrim SE mods are all permanently version 1.5.97 supported. This can be done manually via the Download Depot commands in the Steam Console which is accessed by typing steam://open/console into the Windows “Run” prompt, or alternatively using a Downgrade Patcher mod which ironically also has to be updated for every new version.
So what I’m understanding from reading everyone’s outrage and input on this, is that Fallout London may or may not come out because of this, but more importantly, just wait a little while after the update to try out mods, just like every other Bethesda game update?
Little while could be a long while for some mods and maybe never for others. I wouldn’t be surprised if some mod developers don’t go back and fix it if they had moved on to other projects. These mods will be years old and anything that uses the script extender will have advanced features to it so they’re not a 3 minute quest mod using only existing assets found in the game itself.
Yeah this is the likely outcome. Happens all the time, tons of great old Cyberpunk mods broke with 2.0 and will probably never get updated for example.
So how do they hook into the game, is it through the .DLL libraries?
This kind of mod is always a DLL of some kind, and typically, they’ll have you install the DLL to a location that the script extender will load DLLs from automatically (but sometimes they instead use the same name as a Windows DLL and go in the same directory as the game’s executable, as when the game tries to load the Windows DLL, it’ll try ones in its own directory before System32 and similar folders, then as long as the mod DLL in turn loads the real DLL, everything will still work). When the DLL’s loading, it’ll either overwrite bits of memory corresponding to functions with its own code, or if it needs to replace the whole function, will swap out the first few instructions with instructions to jump to a mod function instead.
Nobody liked that.
I made a tutorial on reverting to 1.5.97 Skyrim SE like a month ago because it breaks again with every new update, and they STILL update it pretty frequently.
They did this to Skyrim too. Breaking mods in decade old games is ridiculous
This isn’t a great take IMO.
Why does Bethesda have to be obligated to ensure third party mods work on their game after an update? Isn’t that the job of the mod author to ensure their mod is compatible with the latest update? How is this any different from how any other game with mods has ever worked, ever?
Would it be nice? I guess, but it would require Bethesda to get every mod for the previous version and test for compatibility with the new update before they release their update. That’s a ridiculous request.
The thing is, modders are Bethesda’s most die-hard fans, and Bethesda games have some of the largest modding communities in the world. Many of these modding projects have taken an extraordinary amount of effort from an extraordinary amount of people. For them to not communicate and work with the community at all is a big slap in the face because modders have given people a reason to continue purchasing their games and keeping their business relevant.
Is Bethesda obligated to work with modders to try and help with backwards compatibility? Not legally, no. But their lack of effort is rightfully leaving a sour taste in many people’s mouths.
To your last point, I’m sure you didn’t mean it intentionally but that is a straw man argument; nobody is claiming that every single mod needs to be compatible with Bethesda’s updates. However, if Bethesda at the very least communicated and worked with the community even a little bit, they could make the task of updating mods substantially easier. Instead, they chose not to, and now countless of hours of work will be wasted because so many people will not find it worthwhile to update their mods to be compatible with the new version. It’s extremely unfortunate.
The game was complete a decade ago and modders are the ones that actually finish the game for them. Bethesda absolutely owes modders, specifically teams like the script extenders, some support and respect.
And I was just considering acquiring f04 to play around with mods
Oh well
Every single time this happens, people act like its the first time. Game updates -> Script Extender breaks -> Mods reliant on it break too. Every. Single. Time.
but this is a game that basically lives and dies by its mods, and this is an update that (arguably) changed nothing anyone who is still playing the game cares about after years of stability. why fix what isn’t broken?
Supposedly, the biggest change was simply removing the launcher. Because in order to be steam deck verified, it can’t have the intermediary launcher that interrupts the game booting.
But removing that apparently broke a lot of other things for a lot of people. Supposedly, doing a fresh install helps. Apparently the update fucks some stuff, but a completely fresh install will be buttery smooth. At least, that’s the scuttlebutt. But that doesn’t include mods which have been broken, (and many which aren’t being actively updated anymore, because why bother updating a mod for a game that hasn’t had an update in years?)
I used to run a popular mod that made an indie beta game even more popular. Guess who almost all of the final testers were before release? My whole team. We were clearly the most devoted people to the game and knew best how to break it. It was nice to get a head-start on our new mod (which we pivoted to be the equivalent of Steam Workshop or an app store before those existed). Of course, the creator became a dickwad years later and we all ended the mod and the game is dead.
For a company that relies 100% on modders for their games, you’d think they’d have an actual modding API built into their games by now.
There’s a pretty extensive API, capable of more than most games that advertise modding support, but it can’t do literally everything anyone could think of, so people reverse engineer the game engine to make it possible to do even more things (hence it being called a script extender rather than the modding API). It’s the mod reliant on reverse engineering the executable that break, not the ones using the modding API.
Imagine if Bethesda actually really listened to and catered to their modding community instead of just trying to monetize them. They would be legend right now.
if bethesda relied 100% on modders then fo3 and new vegas and morrowind and oblivion and skyrim would have completely failed on console. did they?
“This thing they announced for last year, then pushed back to this year and released to coincide with a massively hyped TV show was a complete surprise to us.” Is that really FO:London’s stance? I mean, I feel for them that it sucks, but to call it a surprise feels straight up disingenuous.
How do you prepare for an update when Bethesda don’t tell you what is changing? It says in the article they had literally no correspondence from Bethesda until the update dropped, so the only thing they could do was keep developing and hope not too much broke in the process.
That being said, from what I understand is that the script extender broke, so they’re just waiting for an undefined time until that gets fixed for the latest update.
The script extender breaks with every update and is usually fixed within a week.
I’ll have to watch the BBC interview. The way the article is worded makes it sounds like they’ve been in communication with Bethesda while creating Fallout London.
There’s actually a comment to the effect that they had zero communication with Bethesda, but still wish they had been given earlier notice.
That’s the kicker lol. They didn’t communicate with Bethesda but expect Bethesda to communicate with them.
Yeah but what expectation could they have had that they’d need to communicate with Bethesda in the first place? The game’s been “complete” for several years at this point, and IIRC Skyrim Special Edition (the Skyrim version of what happened here) was both announced in advance and released as a separate game, so mods that weren’t getting updates could still function. In light of that, it seems reasonable for the developer to expect advance warning at least in the form of a press release prior to the update being made available. Should they have reached out every week asking whether Bethesda had any plans to update a 10-year-old game?
In light of that, it seems reasonable for the developer to expect advance warning at least in the form of a press release prior to the update being made available.
The modder said it themselves. It will take time for them to check the 4 years of work to see if it still function. At this point, no matter when Bethesda drop the update, they will complaint that it break their mod. This has been going on since the launch of FO4 where every time bethesda update the game, it break the mod, people complain about it, some straight out announce they won’t fix it until the final update. It’s nothing new.
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To play devil’s advocate, it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You can’t make an omlette without breaking eggs, and changing the game so much doesn’t seem like something that wouldn’t do anything to mods. Then - who should they inform? There is no “king of mods”, there is a ton of people making shit. What should they do? Open source to people who aren’t in the company? Give them the patch early? If they promised well in advance, that the patch was comming, priorities could have changed from “patch a years old game to new consoles” to “put out fires in the newest installments”. And people would be mad about that too, or expecting the patch to drop any second, when it was half a year away. Also, what good would saying “ayo, we’re making a patch that’ll break your shit completely” do? Having that info doesn’t change what happens to the mods, and nobody will stop a game update going forward with the arguments of “it’ll break mods”
Honestly the best thing they can do is make for easy game version rollbacks on PC platforms. Kerbal Space Program uses the Steam Betas feature to have a ton of different game versions easily available to download for example. If it were EA I’d also be saying to give the option to defer game updates in their shitty launcher but I’ve given up on hoping EA ever does something positive for its userbase
How about just not “updating” a finished game?
It wouldn’t be the first time, the SKSE team for Skyrim was in contact with Bethesda before Special Edition came out.
It was surreal watching BBC report on a game mod. I saw the thumbnail ‘Fallout London Delay’ with the BBC logo and thought there was a terrorist attack or something.
Fallout’s been full of Americana. The Euros haven’t had their shot at running around in places they know.
I remember hearing about the current-gen upgrade a long time ago. Why is this a surprise?
it was announced quite literally 2 years ago. that is plenty of time to get ready for
I have no idea how modding works, but how would they get ready for a patch without having the files in advance?
My understanding is, they didn’t know what to get ready for. It’s like somebody saying “I’m going to change the game a lot, watch out!” So what do you do then? Sit around and not develop anything for 2 years because it might be based on code that will change?
Why do they need to release for the newest version? If they were going to release soon anyways, just release for the old version of Fallout.
I’m picturing the number of messages they’d receive the day the update hit. People suck. Most will understand that they need to hold off on updating if they want to play the mod, some will seek support when it breaks. Some of those will say “that makes sense” and disappointedly wait for the mod to update, some of those will get angry. I certainly wouldn’t want an inevitable flood of angry emails a few days after the big release.
Yeah it doesn’t help that the Steam version would likely try to auto-update and I don’t believe there is an easy way to downgrade.
I could be wrong about that latter point. There might be an option in the properties menu similar to how you can opt into betas.
Yup, if you use mods, it’s a good idea to set the game to update on launch through the game’s properties menu in its steam library listing.
Since a F4SE nodded game is going to launch through the script extender’s launcher, that keeps the game from updating automatically when starting a play session.
I also like to make a copy of my game folder and save it off in another drive so I have a backup.
I know it’s been possible to downgrade Skyrim after updates, but not through any official means, might be the same with FO4, not sure though.
You have to disable automatic updates manually but it is possible.
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Seriously, especially if it really screwed them over. And I thought he was just celebrating this?
I made sure to download my copy of FO4 from GOG since it hasnt updated yet. Shame London won’t release on GOG (who will be hosting it) still while they work on fixing it for the new version.
Yep, I had to grit my teeth and fork over those $10 in GoG for the 1.10.163. I think I will be buying from them first before Steam from now on. Glad they have auto updates disabled options too.
I’m disappointed in myself for buying FO4 recently.
If you just bought it, just play it. You don’t need mods.
This is untrue. Without the boner points to nearest valuable loot mod the game is unplayable.
I can’t play fnv without wmx anymore. I’m spoiled. Does fo4 weapon mod good?
FO4 has built in modding for weapons and armor. There are some great expansion mods that add mods too.
Dammit I just gotta buy this game already.
I’ve had it for a couple of years but just never got around to playing it. Was excited to do that now after watching the show but after the update it just instantly crashes after clicking “play” on the launcher (completely fresh install, all drivers etc updated). This seems to be very common too, tons of posts about it on the steam discussions. Sadly not super surprised, it’s Bethesda after all.
I was disappointed in myself for buying it when it first came out. I hope there has been a LOT of patching, because at release it was boring AF. Especially coming from FO3 where dialog options and story branching actually mattered. In FO4 I remember purposely choosing the dumbest dialog options and the game just led me where it wanted me to go anyway.
This disappointment was compounded by me also buying Just Cause 3 at the same time… Holy shit what a garbage weekend that was. That was the day I vowed to never buy a game on presale again.
Just Cause 2 was so much fun!
And nothing will ever beat FO:NV.
4 has been ok.
Am I the only person who never installed a single mod for any Bethesda game?
you’re missing out hundreds and thousands of awesome fan made content, there’s even entire fan made dlcs
Don’t forget the hundred-hour-long minigame of “Which order do these mods need to load in so they don’t break again?”
Modding is a hobby, and just like other hobbies, tinkering is part of the fun.
That automated settlement mod for FO4 single handedly rekindled my interest in the game.
I’m not building one more goddamn water purifier for you lazy bastards 😤
… Unless I see you have a slight shortage in your build plan
I feel like Bethesda built a neat mechanic into the engine, the in-game building, but then never did much with it. Yes, you can build a settlement, but the actual task is mostly pretty basic, not much integration or planning to it, and could be a bit grindy.The Sim Settlements 2 mod to which I assume you’re referring did a better job, though I still feel like one could do far more with player construction than has been done in any of:
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Vanilla Fallout 4: layout matters very little, building is mostly a sandbox for aesthetic fun, not much by way of layout decisions other than making some more expensive things harder for raiders to hit. Does have the “The Castle” fight, but that’s short and about it for a real fight. Kind of grindy. Can get aid from the Minutemen if a settlement is nearby with th flaregun mechanic, though that’s pretty minor and I never bothered. Get some settler-produced resources which don’t matter. Get a sleeping spot, which can matter in hardcore mode. Not Sim City or Caesar in 3D.
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Fallout 4 with minor mods: can remove more items in an area to get a cleaner look; some of these break precombines, which hurt engine performance. Can build anywhere, not just in settlements. Can break the restrictions imposed by vanilla Fallout 4 on number of items that can be built (which keep performance sane).
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Fallout 4 modded with Sim Settlements 2. Does a better – albeit still kinda sketchy from a story standpoint – job of incorporating building into the game, has a storyline and quests. Eliminates the grind aspect – you can just take a settlement and let the settlers do almost all the construction, and get much-more-elaborate reconstruction of the Wasteland then I’d manually do. Does some rebalancing so that the weight on the Local Leader perk to make settlements trade, a major QoL improvement, is basically free. Gives me more of a feeling of progress. Plays reasonably well with people doing manual construction alongside the computer-driven stuff. More-substantial automated production. The randomized stuff malign what shows up something of a surprise helps keep it a bit interesting. Makes the game feel a lot more active. Still doesn’t have a lot of gameplay around layout.
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Fallout 76: Player CAMPs are very important to the game, as they contain essential equipment, and defending them is important. Still not a lot to the layout in terms of gameplay. Some people (not me – I’m in the “floating platform” crowd) really enjoy doing realistic and aesthetic CAMPs, and it’s a way to help put a very limited form of player-driven content creation into a form where everyone can easily enjoy it. Player vending machines, scrapboxes, respec locations, and workbenches (to create scrapping locations for overloaded players) create a reason for other players to visit and see them. Extremely limited automated production of certain resources – if you want some very specific builds, like Nuka-Cola-based weaponry, automated production might be useful, but in general, it’s not worth your time.
There are player Shelters as well, “underground” or otherwise off-the-main-map mini maps that players can own and build freely in; there are entered from various entrances created in a player CAMP. I think that this was intended to leverage a survival aspect of Fallout 76 that was originally intended to be a lot more important – radstorms, and needing to seek shelter. These are so infrequent and weak, though, that by the time one gets to Shelters, they’re essentially ignorable. Nothing in a Shelter can be attacked by raiders, but automated production does not work in a Shelter.
With a subscription, there are placeable Tents that can be put on the map in places not one’s CAMP. These provide a resting, scrapbox, and scrapping location that can exist anywhere. Helpful QoL to stick near boss fight locations.
Bethesda sells cosmetic items, if you like that sort of thing (which based on EA’s sales of items for The Sims, I assume some people very much do like). Not very much potential for modding here, due to it being a multiplayer game with the servers run by Bethesda, so unless Bethesda gets and decides to plunge a lot of money into it, vanilla Fallout 76 is probably about as much as there’s going to be.
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Starfield. Meaningful automated production system and resource-hunting system, with slightly more-interesting layout and defense. The problem here is that the only real gameplay reason to build bases is to…get lots of resources, which are only really useful to build large bases. It lets players who don’t like building skip that aspect of the game, but at least to me, made the building aspect feel kind of pointless and circular. We’ll see what happens with mods. The engine is good, and there’s potential for interesting things to happen, but if they don’t get created, well…
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Agree with whay the other person said. Mods for these games are incredible, often better than the core game. Definitely do it
Weird flex
Not a flex, just find it astounding to know how good the original games were and for people to say they suck without mods. I see that a lot.
Yeah probably
Nah, I’m right there with you.
I mean, it’s fine as a stand-alone game, and selecting and setting up a collection of mods takes longer than I’d like. I kind of wish that the default starting point was to do something like what Wabbajack does, use a large curated set of mods, but then let one tweak it like the regular mod managers. But Skyrim and Fallout 4 have to be some of the most-modded games out there. It’s a lot of content and improvements from the community.
They also released some years back. Without mods, they look kinda old in present-day context.
I mean you do you, but Beth games are modding playgrounds, the only other games I can think of really is Rimworld. So for me, playing a Bethesda game modless is like eating a sandwhich of white bread and mayo
This marks you as having several personality traits. Do you vote or lean conservative?
Username checks out. Nope you’re way off
hah, yes it does. and good, glad to hear it ;)
Pretty sure this was fully intended. You’re getting a bunch of band new buyers from the TV show. This can be a way to direct them towards their CC and away from free mods.
I doubt it. Most people seem to regard Creation Club content as something different than regular mods. You can check out the content that’s available here but a majority of it is closer to the paid skins found in online games than what people typically associate with modding and meaningfully altering a game.
I think Bethesda knows this and most people looking to mod Fallout 4 are probably going to continue working with what’s available.
Can’t help but feel for the developers here. I get that Bethesda has no responsibility to keep 3rd party Devs updated, but surely someone on the team would have noticed the potential for community engagement and worked with those putting the time and effort into the IP.
Have they never had to deal with a Bethesda patch before!?
BGS: because fuck you, that’s why.
