A cry of despair from a modder to Klei

[Aki Art]

I have been modding ONI for years; it is a hobby that brought me a lot of joy and helped me through some hard time. Many many comments told me that they bought the game or picked it up again after years, just to play with my mods. It has always been an honor and really fun, and really helped me through my issues with autism and depression. 

That makes this quite a bit harder to say.

For the past couple of months, particularly since Sweet Dreams, the game has seen many many unusual changes. Renamed fields, moved fields, types changed, database setups changed, random methods turned static. These changes have over and over broke mods down, while served no purpose to make the game better in any way for the users or seemingly to me even to Klei development. Like renaming ArtableStatus to Okay from LookingOkay. and then in the next update re-renaming it to LookingOkay, continually breaking all artwork mods over a few characters.

Since Hot Shots beta released 18 days ago, all my free time has been taken away just updating my mods, because of changes like moving body data from MinionIdentity to Accessory, completely breaking my mod that took me months to develop; only so that now that field is on Accessorizer... instead of MinionIdentity... This one random change has cost me over 10 hours of work to adjust to, as my mod used to procedurally generate minion personalities, and the field no longer being on identity has wiped the serialized data on Identity from my thousands of users. That is just one example of dozens of similar small things from that one mod alone, where a tiny change from Klei has dominoed into weeks of work for a modder.

Obviously i cannot ask Klei to carefully always consider moddability with every new line written, or to never refactor anything because some mod might break for it. But these random small changes have been plaguing modders like never before. Some of us feel like we are being punished for modding this game, as we are obligated to update our mods as an unspoken promise to our users, while no longer having time to make new content at all or have fun. 

I mostly speak for myself, but i have heard these sentiments from other modders, and other bigger modders than me getting tired and abandoning popular mods due to the sudden workload imposed on them with these updates, that are just similarly frustrating. It even became an inside joke that Klei is purposefully sabotaging our mods (obviously no one actually means that, but the frustration has been growing)..

The mod update system, as it is set up, constantly fails to update our mods to users, making this issue a lot less manageable. Steam is getting more confused than ever over which versions to serve with so many extra mod updates, and users are constantly crashing and giving us reports that result from outdated versions, even if we updated weeks ago. I had someone not play ONI for months because they were waiting on one of my mods to update... but the mod was updated the whole time, Steam just failed to download the correct version for them. Because of this i have to try and update as few times as possible, to minimize wrong versions. Lot of people use local downloads of my mods instead of Steam Workshop and rather deal with manually updating the mods. 

Also for some reason, this game loads the entire game before updating mods; each tiny mod update is a several minutes restart of the entire game, making this process much more annoying to users; and every time I update my mods i feel a lot of guilt for forcing my users to go through that. 

These last two points mean i cannot just focus on the most breaking changes, and then polish and update my mods at a reasonable pace later; i have to rush to get a completed mod out, all at once. Modders dealt with this for years, but the recent direction in Klei updates has amplified this issue a lot. 

-

I'm sorry if this all sounded too ranty. I still love this game and modding it, and still love my users. It just has been an exhausting time, and I just wanted to let Klei devs at least know of these concerns. 

 

[troublesome]

You are absolutely right, Klei, you have to solve this problem somehow.

This game needs a built-in mod manager, like factorio.

P.S. Sorry for the English, I use an online translator.

[Aki Art]

1 hour ago, troublesome said:

You are absolutely right, Klei, you have to solve this problem somehow.

This game needs a built-in mod manager, like factorio.

P.S. Sorry for the English, I use an online translator.

Basically there is a mod manager. we mod very differently to Factorio so that level of mod support is not possible.

Some of my issues i brought up are unavoidable, and that is okay. My post is about how much worse it got recently, and the updates not working on workshop. I mostly just wanted Klei to be aware of this-

Because if i made a game, and spent work to make modding possible, and then just saw modders drop out and the modding community not growing; i would like to know why.

[pether]

Yeah, I see those issues as well.

In during last 2 game updates, Artable system changed like 6 times, breaking one of my mod every time due to that. I also saw variable renames for reasons I couldn't understand (possible there was a reason for change, I just missed it) that broke my mods each time.

I understand and accept that game improvements must mean changes to the code, and I'm really happy to see the game being better with each update. But it would be nice if Klei stopped for a moment to consider if renaming methods, fields, or making things private is really nessesary to bring those improvements to the game. I can only hope that those big changes were caused by introduction of skin system, and now with that one in place things will be more stable in the future.

Same as you, I have plenty fun with modding and I'm not going to stop now due to changes. But I know modders who were overwhelemed by them and decided to retire as a result. If this trend of seemingly chaotic changes will continue I fear more modders wile give up...

I never modded factorio, not sure how does it work there, neither if their solutions are valid in ONI. I can also imagine Klei cannot focus their all resources to deliver modding API or something similar instead of real game features. But it would be really nice to have some improved system for ensuring mods have correct version - Steam is super unreliable on this front and "Mod Updater" mod is essential to run the game with mods. I believe it's features could be incorporated to the game to make everyone's life a bit easier.

Thanks for understanding!

[Sanchozz]

I'm tired too.
Every time after major game updates. Despite the fact that the fixed and tested mods were uploaded to the workshop in time. Again and again, dozens of people write:
"moo, oink, update plz, it crashes , it doesn't work" without any specifics, as well as  other nasty things.
I'm tired of answering them again and again like a parrot the same thing:
"Open your eyes and read this instruction on performing a ritual shamanic dance to make the game download the latest version of the mod.
Pray to the Gods of the Machine that everything will work out this time.
And first of all use Mod Updater."

Spoiler

This whole situation simply kills any motivation not only to create something new, but also to keep the existing one in working order.

Today I disabled the ability to comment on all my mods. This is also a bad decision. Now I have no feedback and no opportunity to quickly find out about actual problems. With the exception of very rare people who are not too lazy to write to github.

[gabberworld]

On 12/18/2022 at 1:43 PM, troublesome said:

This game needs a built-in mod manager, like factorio.

i tell this sometime ago already maybe adding the lua support. but i not start search this post right now

[Peter Han]

Many of the version issues are due to a particularly insidious bug - the base game leaks a file handle before mods load, sometimes causing a mod to fail to unpack from the Steam cache. What is worse, the base game displays the version in the mods menu using the version in Steam's download folder, not the version currently in the file system. This leads users into believing that they are running one version, when in fact another is running, due to the failed unpack causing a mismatch between the version in mods/ and the Steam downloaded version.

Mod Updater can now detect and report these mods as outdated, to allow users to try and unpack the mod again by forcing an update.

[gabberworld]

On 12/18/2022 at 3:01 PM, Aki Art said:

modding community not growing; i would like to know why.

i bet you cant be doctor either, it is like it is and not worry about this. not every one have time or even skills at coding level.

also in factorio it's same even they to have build in you to still need know also lua.

but what factorio have and this game not, is that if they make change in c++, they not need make that in lua self . that is difference between factorio and oxygen not included

 

 

[gabberworld]

but we to have something what factorio not have. if we want we can fix self the bugs by make mod. if you want todo that in factorio you need high Assembly language skills

by default it means 100 years later players still can have fun with this game if they want

[RomenH]

I agree with a lot of the things said here and I would like to share the concerns I have as a modder too.
I am also finding it really tough to stay on top of the breaking changes that come with every patch and still find time to work on new mods

Something else is bothering me as a modder overall, I do not see enough good signs from Klei that show they actually support their "mod support" for this game.
Here are some of the things I have noticed that make me feel this way:

• Mod update/installation code in the game itself is broken and it has been for a very long time.
  We have a mod called "Mod Updater" that exists simply to work around or fix the bugs in the game. That mod is among the top 10 most subscribed mods on the workshop with over 100,000 users and it would be rendered obsolete if the game itself was fixed.
  Peter made a comment above about a specific issue about mod updating, and I believe he would have more details to share if you reach out to him.
• Every time the game updates there are trivial breaking changes that show no respect for assembly compatibility.
  As Aki mentioned in the OP, there are variables and things being renamed just to have a new name; That breaks all assemblies that were compiled against the old name.
  In addition to renaming things, removing things that are unused also breaks assemblies. If a variable isn't used anymore it would be better to keep it but mark it with an ObsoleteAttribute so we can see a warning about it when we build our assemblies. Iif Klei does not make any effort to avoid the "trivial" breaking changes it sends another message to modders that they don't care about keeping even the simplest mods from breaking.
• The bugs that modders find often don't even get acknowledgement, or have no way to report.
  As modders it is a necessity for us to decompile the game so we can write patches for the game code that get our mods to do what they do.
  That puts us at an advantage to provide very high quality bug reports, since we can identify the actual code causing the bug and recommend a code change.
  Sometimes I see no path forward to reporting those bugs though, because the bug is discovered only after trying to mod something and exposing an issue with the game that can't be exposed without the mod. These kinds of bugs deserve recognition, they are often bugs that modders have to redesign their ideas around or sometimes even give up on a mod because of it. In fact I am currently blocked from releasing a mod as one of my reported bugs sits unacknowledged in the Bug Tracker. (It can be reproduced in the unmodded game too)

 

Quote

This game needs a built-in mod manager, like factorio.

This is something that I disagree with. We have everything we need to manage mods adequately.
The Steam Workshop works great for browsing mods and in theory the game itself provides all of the tools we need to enable/disable and sort the mods.
The bugs around mod updating/installation just need to be fixed so that the "mod manager" we have already is working properly.

Also suggesting something like a mod manager only benefits mod users, while the point of the OP was to focus on issues that mod creators are having.
I would like to keep this thread focused on the modder facing issues and make sure we don't distract from the points Aki made in the OP.

[pether]

13 minutes ago, RomenH said:

I do not see any communication from Klei about when the branch will turn into a release.

You are not fair - that was an issue in the previous update, but Hot Shot got count down marking planned release date. I was able to reserve that day for mod update releases, and a few day before I knew I can prepare code for that update since probably there will be little changes within last 24h. There was even official forum statement saying: "The Hot Shots update goes live to everyone on Thursday along with a new animated short."

You must have missed that note, but this time it was clearly indicated and in my opinion Klei handled sharing that info very well.

[RomenH]

Quote

There was even official forum statement saying: "The Hot Shots update goes live to everyone on Thursday along with a new animated short."

Maybe I'm just a noob at forums, is there is something I am missing that would allow me to see specifically that post in my email or on my phone, or in another very noticeable place?

I guess even if Klei is announcing it, the announcement isn't reaching me and as a modder I want those specific announcements to reach me. How do I accomplish that? If Klei could ping a modder role on their official discord that would go a long way.

I am completely willing to admit that was not a fair complaint and remove it if there is a notification mechanism I wasn't taking advantage of.

[gabberworld]

1 hour ago, RomenH said:

It would be a big help if Klei would reply to their own official post when the testing branch is in its final week(s), it doesn't have to be a guarantee of a release date but at least saves me from wasting my time in all of the weeks before that notice is given.

i must be nut but im kind off sure that they tell somewhere that release comes out 2 weeks after test started

[Peter Han]

2 hours ago, RomenH said:

It would be a big help if Klei would reply to their own official post when the testing branch is in its final week(s), it doesn't have to be a guarantee of a release date but at least saves me from wasting my time in all of the weeks before that notice is given.

Hot Shots was actually one of the first times when Klei updated the countdown timer for a major testing branch release, and this was helpful! Previous releases like Fast Friends were released with no warning, which was difficult for many mods; the improved communication is much appreciated and I hope it continues for future updates.

[SharraShimada]

From a mod user perspective this time it went really well. I use WAY to many (~80) mods. 

And all i had to do was waiting 2 days for @Peter Hanto update fast track (i dont want to play without anymore!) and everything else was fine until then.

[meekay]

20 hours ago, Peter Han said:

Hot Shots was actually one of the first times when Klei updated the countdown timer for a major testing branch release, and this was helpful! 

This was good, but I wish they'd spent an extra week testing it.

The last few releases have caused so many regression bugs. You can get away with releasing alpha quality software when you're in "early access" -- and let's be clear, if a memory leak crashes the game after five minutes, that's what you have. But the game has been GA'd and DLC'd for a while now. Some of the bugs that are still outstanding were for features that were only released two months ago.

[gabberworld]

15 hours ago, meekay said:

The last few releases have caused so many regression bugs. You can get away with releasing alpha quality software when you're in "early access" -- and let's be clear, if a memory leak crashes the game after five minutes, that's what you have. But the game has been GA'd and DLC'd for a while now. Some of the bugs that are still outstanding were for features that were only released two months ago.

ok. now that's where is point for not cry, if you have access the beta then you can help them. they still to have kind off small dev team. klei is no some-sort huge company like EA

also best way fix bugs like this is tell them right away as when they todo changes they still remember what they todo at code. but weeks later who **** remember anymore