Please fix Harmony and ModManager fiasco

[Montezuma]

There's something that worries me about the behavior of developers and the community. It seems that all the bureaucracy for the use of mods (installation and compatibility of several libraries like Harmony and Butterlib) has been naturalized. Don't you remember what it was like in the warband? Download the mod and place it in the folder. Come on, life is hard enough!

 

[vonbalt]

The what now? if there is one thing we can't complain was better in warband was modability, bannerlord is much better in this regard with it's modularity and many more public classes easily accessible to modders instead of having most of it private and hardcoded like in warband.

Libraries like harmony are just a tool that the community greatly adopted so far because of how good it is, it allows you to change small snippets of the same code without having to replace the entire class thus creating much less compatibility problems between different mods.

 

[Montezuma]

The what now? if there is one thing we can't complain was better in warband was modability, bannerlord is much better in this regard with it's modularity and many more public classes easily accessible to modders instead of having most of it private and hardcoded like in warband.

Libraries like harmony are just a tool that the community greatly adopted so far because of how good it is, it allows you to change small snippets of the same code without having to replace the entire class thus creating much less compatibility problems between different mods.

It may be easier for developers, but you have to admit that the need to download and track several mod dependencies is not user friendly

 

[Poddicus]

Put the Harmony and Butterlib folders into your modules folder like you would any other mod
Sort your load order

How is this difficult?

 

[vonbalt]

It may be easier for developers, but you have to admit that the need to download and track several mod dependencies is not user friendly

Maybe if you have never modded a game before in your life you'll need to waste 5 precious minutes of your time to watch a youtube video and learn everything there is to know about installing, managing and updating mods, that's it and it can't get easier than that if you want any degree of control about what you are installing in your game lmao

A simple mod manager like Vortex has everything you need to download, manage and keep track of your mods and updates and is extremely user friendly.

It's literally 2 clicks to download from the nexus, one click to install the mod, open the game and activate the mod you want in the launcher and then from time to time hit the "look for updates" button to see if anything you use has updated in the meantime and repeat step one if it has.

Not wanting to bash you dude but it IS easy AF and if you want to play any modded game the very minimum is to read mod descriptions (that has everything you need to know about it) and learning how to properly install a mod.

 

[AngryPanCake]

The what now? if there is one thing we can't complain was better in warband was modability, bannerlord is much better in this regard with it's modularity and many more public classes easily accessible to modders instead of having most of it private and hardcoded like in warband.

That is excellent news.

 

[Octanoz]

So the request is for TW to fix mods?

 

[MostBlunted]

So the request is for TW to fix mods?

If they won´t fix their own issues, maybe they can fix the mods that fixes their issues?

 

[Errayn]

Warband also had WSE whats the problem

 

[Namakan]

Maybe if you have never modded a game before in your life you'll need to waste 5 precious minutes of your time to watch a youtube video and learn everything there is to know about installing, managing and updating mods, that's it and it can't get easier than that if you want any degree of control about what you are installing in your game lmao

A simple mod manager like Vortex has everything you need to download, manage and keep track of your mods and updates and is extremely user friendly.

It's literally 2 clicks to download from the nexus, one click to install the mod, open the game and activate the mod you want in the launcher and then from time to time hit the "look for updates" button to see if anything you use has updated in the meantime and repeat step one if it has.

Not wanting to bash you dude but it IS easy AF and if you want to play any modded game the very minimum is to read mod descriptions (that has everything you need to know about it) and learning how to properly install a mod.

If a ModManager is required for modding, modding isn't easy.
I shouldn't have to install an extra piece of software to mod my game.

The concern OP raises is valid one IMO, but not one that will change at all - it can't (and it shouldn't), at least for now. That said, maybe having standalone-versions of mods (with all required libraries included) would help out people like OP (that might only want one or two mods, not a lot of them with the same dependencies), though I doubt the extra effort will be worth it for many modders.

 

[vonbalt]

If a ModManager is required for modding, modding isn't easy.
I shouldn't have to install an extra piece of software to mod my game.

And you don't need to at all but then you'll have to use your brain to search for updates from time to time simple as that.

The mod manager just makes it easier to keep track of updates for mods, that's the only real advantage of using one unless you go more advanced like MO2 for skyrim with it's virtual mod folders and etc (sadly doesn't work for bannerlord for now)

Installing a mod with or without a mod manager is literally just unpacking from the zip/rar archive and placing in the modules folder, only thing that could be easier than that is steam workshop but then it takes control from player hands completely and you can't prevent mods from updating which could break saves and cause bugs without you knowing why and it also has a limit on the size of mods thus the bigger ones can't be placed in the workshop.

It'll come eventually for bannelord, probably with the end of early access and then people that want one or two easy tweaks can use that if they don't care to lose control about their modding.

 

[Montezuma]

Let's take a simple mod like Bettertime.
Dependencies, according to the authors:

Bannerlord.Harmony
Bannerlord.ButterLib.
UIExtenderEx
MCM

I've used mods in other versions, then i gave up because this "small time" needed to update and deal with dependencies ends up being kind of boring. Besides that, eventually you have to choose between keeping an old version, or risking losing your saves etc.. Of course there are programs to facilitate this, such as nexus and mod manager, but I don't think it's practical to need other programs for this.

I'm not a game developer, but I wonder if it's possible to integrate the functionality of Harmony and ButterLib into the native game. I think this is a very reasonable thing, which would help both mod developers and gamers.

 

[Mad Vader]

I'm not a game developer, but I wonder if it's possible to integrate the functionality of Harmony and ButterLib into the native game. I think this is a very reasonable thing, which would help both mod developers and gamers.

This seems logical, but Taleworlds doesn't have the flexibility to respond to changing modder needs as much as the modders in charge of the common libraries. Imagine you are a modder and think of functionality that will help you and others - you can just message the library modder to expand the functionality. Convincing Taleworlds is harder, more time-consuming and more uncertain. They'll say "thank you for your feedback" and disappear forever, cruising around the world on one of their ill-gotten yachts with ill-gotten topless models.
Taleworlds could periodically incorporate the frequently used functions of common modder libraries hoping to eliminate dependencies of at least some of the mods, but that's like their #99 priority for now. Perhaps post-release they'll have more time and take more interest in helping modders.

As for you, use a mod manager to update mods, and take in account that the game breaks mods frequently, so it's not anyone's fault that the process is frustrating for now. Just kidding, it's really your fault for buying into early access and you need to suffer for great justice.

 

[bm01]

It may be easier for developers, but you have to admit that the need to download and track several mod dependencies is not user friendly

It ends up being easier for users too.

Without MCM for example, modders would have to add their own menu in game, on a separate button, until the game can no longer show them or maybe even crash. Less skilled modders would simply don't do it, use an obscure keyboard shortcut that could conflict with others, or ask users to modify text, xml or yaml files manually.

As for UIExtender and ButterLib, I'm pretty sure they were originally part of MCM. And while they might be a bit overkill, the philosophy is the same : "If you change any of the game standard prefab .xml files you should use this library or similar approach in order to not overwrite changes to the same elements by other mods. You don't need to use this if you are adding a completely new screen or a menu item in the encounter overlay, since things like that are already handled correctly by the game API."

Harmony on the other hand is used by pretty much any mod doing some programming. Without a proper official API it's realistically the only way to alter most of the game's behaviors without necessarily overwriting changes by other mods. Mods include it in their archives, but that could theoretically become a problem if different version of Harmony are used since only the first one is loaded by the game, meaning that if other installed mods depends on a more recent version bad thing could happen, potentially silently. This is why ideally harmony should be loaded as a external mod, on top of the list, and be updated by the user, so that he knows what's going on.

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

I have played Skyrim with 200+ mods which are almost 90% of them needing a tool mod first to funtcion. In Warband, I hated that I had to only play with one mod and everything comes with it. Yes, it was easy but sometimes I did not like the mod I am playing does not have a feature others have or a feature it did include. With Bannerlord like Skyrim, I can individually pick the ones I like and install them but obviously, that comes with a price. Depended mods are a common thing when you want to mod the game like Skyrim or Bannerlord and you have to invest your time. You have to read their description page, see if they conflict with another mod you are using or have to install its compatibility patch. I don't know how many hours I spent on modding Skyrim but I know it was a lot.

Spoiler: Lol, my Skyrim related modding sites

About updates of the mods of Bannerlord, the game is still in EA, I mean what do we expect. Hell, even Skyrim mods gets updated from time to time.

But I heard, months ago, nexus implementing a new feature which is with a click of a button you will be able to install hundreds of mods without having to go into the trouble you mentioned. But understandably, some modders get upset about this and they start to remove their mods from nexus.

 

[CrazyElf]

The what now? if there is one thing we can't complain was better in warband was modability, bannerlord is much better in this regard with it's modularity and many more public classes easily accessible to modders instead of having most of it private and hardcoded like in warband.

Libraries like harmony are just a tool that the community greatly adopted so far because of how good it is, it allows you to change small snippets of the same code without having to replace the entire class thus creating much less compatibility problems between different mods.

Yep - this current system is more modular, which is a major improvement.

Going back to Warband would be a major step backwards. I strongly disagree with the OP on this.

Let's take a simple mod like Bettertime.
Dependencies, according to the authors:

Bannerlord.Harmony
Bannerlord.ButterLib.
UIExtenderEx
MCM

Use Nexus Mod Manager for this. It's user friendly. Click the check for updates and it is very easy to know what mods will require an update.