I recently watched with amazement how a huge discussion can arise about a mod for DT that makes gameplay easier. There are many different opinions in the community about mods and their implementation, but I think almost all players agree that the current state, for both V2 and DT, is bad. If I understand correctly, everyone can mod DT however they want, but in V2 it is almost impossible to get a mod to be “sanctioned” and usable when playing without progress turned off.
I think it’s not necessary to come up with any new revolutionary solutions when there are games that have managed to solve this to everyone’s satisfaction and it’s easy to adopt their system with some modifications. The game I’m talking about here is DRG - it has three categories of mods: 1) Those that significantly change the gameplay - it’s not possible to progress with them. 2) Those that only slightly change the gameplay - You can’t unlock achievements with them. 3) Those that only change textures, sounds, or very minimally the gameplay - everything is possible with them. For V2 and DT, I think only two categories would be enough: Mods that change and mods that do not change gameplay mechanics. (Official and Modded realm) Mods that would only change sounds, textures, ui… could be auto-sanctioned, so FS wouldn’t have to deal with it. And players would be free to decide whether they want to use mods that change gameplay while losing game progress, or just use mods that don’t change gameplay and not lose progress.
I understand that FS doesn’t want to dedicate a paid person to sanctioning and managing things around mods, so I’m offering to oversee this for V2 myself simply because I like the game. I think there could certainly be a volunteer for DT as well. This could resolve the tension between players over mods. I hope I am speaking clearly, please FS for a response.
Darktide doesn’t need a Modded Realm, nor should the devs sully it with another attempt at a mod-sanctioning system, and I’d expect you’d be inclined to agree based off of the thread you yourself started a few months ago regarding a previously once-sanctioned mod from yesteryear:
The idea for a would-be-unpaid-volunteer-sanctioner wouldn’t work either, since that once again brings in one of the biggest issues when it comes to the handful of problematic mods these topics revolve around: subjectivity.
I’m not going to besmirch the VT2 section of the forums by dragging that Darktide Topic over here, but know that it has been discussed at length; In fact, you yourself have been active in that thread and thus should remember what the core of that discussion is about.
This will not work.
FatShark doesn’t need to even consider the thought of implementing something like this and further splitting the playerbase; all they need to do is say “hey, this isn’t cool” or “yeah, that’s fine” regarding a small handful of mods, and go from there.
There are a number of options that should come before resorting to something like this.
No, if there are clear rules, subjectivity is really not a problem.
It clearly needs something like that for preventing still ongoing hate between DT players. The sanctioning system is a great way to handle mods in an online co-op game. Only reason why it is not working for V2 is that nothing is happening there, noone is sanctioning mods anymore. Volunteers like me and auto sanctioning system for non gameplay changing mods can fix that.
I will refer you to my response discussing why I believe a certain mod is in direct breach of at least one of the DT Modding Policy’s criteria:
I believe this rule is rather clear regarding why something should be done about that specific mod. I also believe the “outright cheating in missions” clause is rather clear regarding it too.
Evidently, other people do not.
Since I (and several others) already believe it to be clear enough, how should the rules be re-worded for further clarity so people can agree?
I vehemently disagree. No, Darktide does not need something as extreme forced into it due to a small handful of problematic mods and the discourse surrounding them.
I’ll refer you back to the final line of my previous comment:
“There are a number of options that should come before resorting to something like this.”
Theoretically? Possibly.
When was the last time VT2 mods were sanctioned?
How would an auto-sanctioning system work?
If it’s so theoretically simple and obvious, why haven’t FatShark implemented it for Vermintide?
Why especially, could they not have auto-sanctioned an updated version of a previously sanctioned mod, at the very least?
I believe Fatshark announced they were giving up on sanctioning anymore mods for VT2.
Darktide has a developer made Lua scripting engine or framework that exposes some parts of the game to modification.
The problem is, that many Darktide players are trying to enjoy the game as intended, and don’t want to play with people who can do things like see through walls. This is not even a new thing for the game, but the latest thread is the most egregious example.
I think (could be wrong) the solution for Darktide is very simple, they just need to rework or remove some of the scripting functions that modders use to enable cheats.
For Vermintide 2, I bet they could probably do something similar if they really wanted to. They could keep the modded realm, but create a Lua scripting framework for VT2 that allows players to, at the very least, adjust the UI and configure bot behavior on the official realm. Maybe even cosmetic changes like player outfits.
As I wrote in my original post. I would sort mods to two categories: “It changes gameplay” and “it does not change gameplay”. I think that there would be no room for subjective opinions then.
I wrote that in my original post too… All mods that change only sounds or textures or just ui elements would be auto sanctioned.
Because it is FS. There are many simple things in V2 that could be done to the game to be much better but… Just FS thingy.
I think because they do not want to pay a person who would do that. That is why I volunteered on that position.
So, I think this could work very similar to Darktide then. They’d just need to create a Lua scripting framework with documentation that includes a few functions which modders can use adjust hud elements or replace in-game textures.
So, that’s kinda what Darktide does, the latest griping about the walling is because it’s using some kind of tagging overlay to highlight enemies through walls.
An easy way to avoid that would simply be to ensure scripts can’t be used to view enemies through barriers and gas or through Darkness weekly modifiers, etc.
It gets into very muddy territory, especially once you consider disabled people. Spidey Sense is a mod, right? Surely there’s a population of hearing-impaired players or people who simply play with volume off (for whatever reason) in a game heavily dominated by sound cues. Should they just shove it because there’s another population of people who want to get any advantage they can and claim that the ends justify the means because the sound cues just don’t work sometimes?
Ultimately any amount of modding verification is going to have to go off of the honor system in some capacity. You can say “pretty please don’t use this mod that points out special cues unless you’re deaf” and there are gonna be folk who ignore that because they want to play havoc 40 without learning how to actually pay attention to the world around them.
For my money, as long as it isn’t blatantly cheating, it’s fine. You can use a special tracker to keep track of spawns and deaths if you really think you need it. You can spam cryonic rod for comedy value all you like. Just don’t use the walls and claim it’s justified because the game’s sound engine is bad.
I think the idea here is to have the developers create a Lua scripting add-on for VT2 that exposes some parts of the game for modding like UI, certain cosmetic features; like how Darktide does.
This would make it so that you could have mods up on the Nexus that get dropped into a folder in addition to the Steam workshop mods that only work on modded realm.
Client-side mods like Darktide’s shouldn’t create any issues between host/client or server/client.
To my understanding, there’s no technical limitation that would prevent this entirely, it’s just a matter of whether Fatshark would ever set aside the time and effort to make that possible.
