Board 8 > Is a game good if you have to mod it to enjoy it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Currently playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous because I wanted my D&D-style western fantasy fix. I'm having fun with the narrative and character expression, but I really don't think I'd tolerate this game if I didn't have a bunch of mods installed.

-Movement, both in and out of battle, is slow as hell even on the highest settings. Modded that to go higher.
-Missing out on dialogue and flavor text because of arbitrary dice rolls is not fun. Gave my character super high Perception and social stats.
-Super restrictive inventory carrying capacity. Modded items to have no weight.
-Lots of quests run on a background timer, and they'll fail if you take too long doing other stuff in the game. Some people like this, but I don't lmao, so I reduced the rate at which time passes when you're traveling on the world map.
-And lastly, but definitely most importantly, the number of enemies in this game is absurd. There's so, so many enemies and they take so long to defeat despite most fights boiling down to the same formula. I bound the 'Kill All Enemies Onscreen' mod button to F11 and have used it to kill probably half the total enemies in the game so far just to speed things along.

And those are just the major things. I've made plenty of quality of life changes too. After all that, I AM enjoying the game, but without the mods I probably wouldn't be.

I bought Pathfinder: Kingmaker a while back and planned to play it after Xenoblade 3 probably but now I'm getting nervous!

I mean.... I dunno. It's the only way to play Oblivion.

Have not played the game, but that sounds like the game has a lot of issues!

I think it's one thing if the mods are to fix technical aspects, like the original Dark Souls for PC was garbage at running well unless you used a very popular user mod to fix a shoddy port. There's multiple reasons why this could have happened but it did.

Having to mod things to 'fix' major aspects of the gameplay just to make it enjoyable sounds like it's not a great game at it's core.

my two cents

xp1337 posted...

I bought Pathfinder: Kingmaker a while back and planned to play it after Xenoblade 3 probably but now I'm getting nervous!

Kingmaker is both a better and worse game. You have to use a mod to install turn-based combat, so if you dislike Real Time With pause (which I do) that's one step right off the bat. The narrative also isn't as good, although it's still fun. I think the overall gameplay loop is better than Wrath of the Righteous, though, with less enemy spam and better gameplay sub-system that don't involve stupid minigames.

Another thing I forgot to mention about Wrath of the Righteous: it has a forced RTS battle thing, which fits the war setting but man is it not very fun. I installed a mod to auto-win all those battles. I am straight up not interacting with like half this game.

A modded game is eventually good but the base game is bad forever

Or something like that

Mega_Mana posted...

I mean.... I dunno. It's the only way to play Oblivion.

I go back to Skyrim every now and then, which wouldn't happen with tons and tons of mods. I've played vanilla Skyrim and didn't enjoy it, but modded Skyrim is great. Two completely different experiences.

Mega_Mana posted...

I mean.... I dunno. It's the only way to play Oblivion.

Note - I did not enjoy Oblivion when it was released because I think it was a huge step back from Morrowind.

With that said, having to mod something like that to have it catch up with a lot of quality of life changes that the genre has evolved into years after the fact does not make it bad. If you think it was bad on release before mods, like me, that's a different story

Aecioo posted...

If you think it was bad on release before mods, like me, that's a different story

Your opinions kind of mirror mine, because when I played vanilla Skyrim I thought it was a step back from Oblivion. Only person in the world who has that view, but hey.

If it's all QOL issues then it's still a good game imo. But I personally judge a game harshly for bad QOL and UI since those are the easiest things to get right. As is evident by modders doing it.

KamikazePotato posted...

Your opinions kind of mirror mine, because when I played vanilla Skyrim I thought it was a step back from Oblivion. Only person in the world who has that view, but hey.

Yeah sorry I can't go there, lol.

Some of those complaints dont sound like issues to me tbh.

Missing out on certain dialogue and flavor because you built a certain character is the epitome of role-playing lol.

I modded Divinity 2 a fair amount as well, but it was mostly for smaller things like running speed (why do all these 2D isometric games have slow running speed). The game still would've been fun without mods, and I thought the core loop and systems were very good. Totally different experience having to break Wrath of the Righteous or Skyrim over my knee with mods.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Some of those complaints dont sound like issues to me tbh.

Missing out on certain dialogue and flavor because you built a certain character is the epitome of role-playing lol.

There's nothing fun about losing out on dialogue because your character randomly rolls low on an arbitrary dice roll. This has been an issue with the WRPG genre for a long time, even outside of D&D-esque games. It's supposed to be simulating D&D rolls, but the problem is that real-life D&D has a Dungeon Master who will make something interesting happen no matter what happens. In games, it's just content gatekeeping through random chance. The only game I've ever played that somewhat succeeds with this is Disco Elysium.

If it's hidden dice rolls, no thanks. If dialogue is hidden because you need 12 perception and you only have 11, sure

KamikazePotato posted...

Kingmaker is both a better and worse game. You have to use a mod to install turn-based combat, so if you dislike Real Time With pause (which I do) that's one step right off the bat. The narrative also isn't as good, although it's still fun. I think the overall gameplay loop is better than Wrath of the Righteous, though, with less enemy spam and better gameplay sub-system that don't involve stupid minigames.

Ah.

While I prefer turn-based to RTwP I'm okay with the latter as long as its implemented well. Which I can't really describe so it's more of a "I guess I'll find out if I like it lol"

I read the title and my first thought was "no, Skyrim is not a good game."

Anyway, I have Pathfinder: Kingmaker but haven't played it yet. Does anyone know if it shares these problems?

Edit: just saw some ,mention of Kingmaker and its issues.

https://youtu.be/MR-1t28ngkk

Heres a great Kingmaker review

I tried Kingmaker for awhile and really hated the gameplay in both forms.

Also I know its like, based off of Pathfinder, but the sheer amount of terms and items and crap you need to learn to play that game if you only have a little experience with the setting/system is just absurd.

KamikazePotato posted...

The only game I've ever played that somewhat succeeds with this is Disco Elysium.

I forget what the two colors were (red and white?), but failing the checks you can't retry was just an exercise in save scumming. Which is what these sorts of dialogue options always become.

KamikazePotato posted...

when I played vanilla Skyrim I thought it was a step back from Oblivion. Only person in the world who has that view, but hey.

I didn't have precisely that view, but I did think that they were doing a disservice in both Skyrim and Fallout 4 by cutting either skill points or attributes. It reeks of them trying to differentiate the two series by dumbing down your options, but all it did was lead to minimal quest writing and boring character builds. There's also the incredibly cookie cutter way every dungeon in Skyrim was crafted, complete with quick exit. The combat was certainly a step up from Oblivion, though...which isn't saying anything at all.

On-topic, my answer is yes, because I generally don't mod games. Unless the developers create the game with the explicit intent to allow modding, it's usually a chore to make things work. Even then, it's not always enjoyable. I've been playing a ton of Cities: Skylines this year and it is designed to allow for modding, but some of the most popular mods just kinda ruin the game for me. I stick to a few QoL changes only.

I would call such a game "good", but only ifthe mods are simply adjusting controls, graphics, UI, or bug-fixes.

If the mods are adding/adjusting mechanics, I think that's a whole separate thing. Then I would start saying the game "can be good, if you get the right mods".

azuarc posted...

I forget what the two colors were (red and white?), but failing the checks you can't retry was just an exercise in save scumming. Which is what these sorts of dialogue options always become.

There were a couple amazing conversations in that game hidden behind failing. But yeah, it still had issues, which is why I clarified with 'somewhat' succeeds.