Regarding Future Updates

[MrBeefers]

Hey there longtime fan of Stardew Valley I've played the Switch, PC, AND mobile versions for many many hours

I'm curious there's a lot of popular mods out there one mainly being StardewValleyExpanded

Is there possibly any chance of ConcernedApe working with modders to permanently implement popular mods into Vanilla game or even add native mod support like Minecraft?

I know the latest Binding of Isaac DLC to implement a very fan-favorite mod into the game and I think it'd bring a lot of content to non-modders.

I have absolutely nothing against modders either I just think mods like SVE are so full of content that it'd really add to Stardew Valley's vanilla experience

 

[mouse]

I started typing a lot, but then decided to just quote myself from a similar "add mod to game" thread, hehe.

I don't think it's very likely for any modded NPCs to join the vanilla game - remember CA initially did every part of this game on his own, over years. Just randomly adding someone else's entire NPC, however well-made, seems pretty unlikely, especially since in order for the NPC to make sense in the mod, everything about her (custom locations, events, dialogue, etc) is based on her living in SVE with references to SVE content.

I think that's a good thing, though! Consider that it's pretty easy to mod Stardew Valley and play with all the custom NPCs you could ever desire, so when we get game updates, it's not just recycled content from mods you've already played, but things the dev thinks would be fun and new on their own, unhindered by what people have already done in mods, and able to make changes to the game wherever necessary to support it.

Meanwhile, mod authors get to just tinker around and make what they want, when they want, without handing over content to an official team on a slower update cycle. You get the best of both worlds :)

Modders have it great in this game, and I've never really seen the value in a 2 person team devoting all the time and effort necessary to implement an official modding solution when the modding tools we have are so good. I personally think that the best way to help out modders is just standard bug-fixing and un-hardcoding things (so they're easier for modders to use), and there have been many presents to modders in game updates !

Keep in mind too, that lots of people choose other (or even directly competing) mods, and are largely free to mix and match since most mods for Stardew are a download, drag and drop affair. I ended up typing more anyway, oops. Anyway, I totally understand the sentiment, but I think it's a great, uh, separation of powers or something that we have now :D

 

[ISSsloth]

I like the idea but personally I like the vanilla game and might play a modded run at some point, but only after I feel I've completed my vanilla run.

 

[tomaO2]

I'd be happy with just official support for it. Steam users, for instance, should be able to get the workshop option. As it stands, most people are not going to bother going to a third party to download mods, and console gamers are completely out of luck. Give people the option to do it in the base game. CA isn't against mods, has even worked to help modders update their stuff before the release of major patches, so why not go the extra mile and give full support in the game itself?

A thriving mod community is a great asset for any video game.

Also, sometimes obvious solutions are obvious. The inability to see the radius of a scarecrow has a simple, logical, fix. When holding the scarecrow, you can see the tile range. Now, there is a mod that does this, but it's the logical solution, so you can't just say, "someone already thought up this idea, guess I can't add it to the game." No, you should add it, because it's a good fix for an annoying part part of the game.

 

[1FlyCat]

Give people the option to do it in the base game. CA isn't against mods, has even worked to help modders update their stuff before the release of major patches, so why not go the extra mile and give full support in the game itself?

A thriving mod community is a great asset for any video game.

I fully agree. Making it easier to install and enable/disable mods within the game itself would be a great addition.

 

[mouse]

I understand the impulse, but I just think it's important that suggestions like this not be made in the name of people who create mods, without actually getting the opinions of that community. You'll probably find that most of the active community is lukewarm at best on "official" modding support, though I haven't been on Discord much of late which is where it usually comes up! I linked earlier the modding wishlist to show all the ways the devs have helped out modders in the past, but it's worth looking at it overall to see the kinds of things that are really helpful and already going out of their way to do.

SMAPI is the backbone of the modding community, and it's not obvious if it would even be allowed on the workshop because of how it works and what it's capable of doing (ie run arbitrary code on your PC, access filesystem if need be, etc). It's extensively documented (along with Content Patcher, the biggest framework for non-programming mods there is), open-source, and can update whenever is needed without relying on developer time at all.

Like I said, I completely understand wanting to mod with less friction (even if I personally don't believe the suggestion would actually attain that), but please, please, please don't add some layer of guilt on the devs to it, like failing to invest (and it is a significant investment!) the time of 2 whole people in a parallel modding system for a single store environment (non steam buyers?) is failing in support of modders. It feels bad enough that so many mod users report mod issues as vanilla bugs, haha.

(I don't really think the usefulness of individual mods is relevant though, since plenty of mods have become obsolete in the past. A quality of life suggestion is a quality of life suggestion, and sometimes those changes get made officially in their own way and the mods are no longer needed and are allowed to retire to pasture :P )

 

[tomaO2]

I don't understand your argument, Mouse. The developers of Tabletop Simulator don't spent any time at all vetting the thousands of mods that people create. When I said "official support", I don't mean having the developers spend time working on the mods other people created, I mean just let people have easy access. On the other hand, if you are saying that most of the existing mods don't work on steam and we shouldn't bother, well, that's their problem to rectify, or not, as they want. At least new mods will be easily available to players.

Modding is also a way to cheat. There isn't anyone that doesn't like an easy option to gain 10 million in an instant. I remember the days when cheat codes were considered part of the game. I don't have a study in front of me but I cannot imagine if there was an easy, in-game, option to add a mod, that most people would try out some. I generally work that way myself. Mods that I can get from steam workshop, I tend to use, mods that I have to go to some third party website, like with Stardew, I don't, and if you are a console user, you cannot get access to third party mods in any case.

 

[Freizeitfarmer]

I dont use mods at the moment. And the game is pretty cool the way it is without.
Anyway I think an official in-game mod-system would be cool too.

I've played OpenXCom (a open-source remake of UFO/X-Com) which has an in-game mod-functionality and this is heavily used. You can load mods, (re)order these or just switch the mods on/off.
But still I like the vanilla version of the game as a "classic" and pure version. It's fun both ways and it's fun to switch between and compare your own possibilities/capabilities. :-)

 

[mouse]

I don't understand your argument, Mouse. The developers of Tabletop Simulator don't spent any time at all vetting the thousands of mods that people create. When I said "official support", I don't mean having the developers spend time working on the mods other people created, I mean just let people have easy access. On the other hand, if you are saying that most of the existing mods don't work on steam and we shouldn't bother, well, that's their problem to rectify, or not, as they want. At least new mods will be easily available to players.

Modding is also a way to cheat. There isn't anyone that doesn't like an easy option to gain 10 million in an instant. I remember the days when cheat codes were considered part of the game. I don't have a study in front of me but I cannot imagine if there was an easy, in-game, option to add a mod, that most people would try out some. I generally work that way myself. Mods that I can get from steam workshop, I tend to use, mods that I have to go to some third party website, like with Stardew, I don't, and if you are a console user, you cannot get access to third party mods in any case.

Tabletop Simulator was built with official mod support, though. Stardew Valley is not. It's not a button that just needs to be pressed and instant mod support, you know? It requires investment from the devs, when the tools that we already have are good. Most official modding solutions are so much more limited than what we already have.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to turn a suggestion thread into a "your suggestion is bad and you should feel bad" or anything -- I can't speak for devs and if nothing else it's good to know what people are wishing for, whether it happens or not! But I do think there's a lot of misconception about a lot of what goes into modding -- both making and using -- and I think it's also good to consider that they can support modders without doing that, too, and hopefully still have time to work on the game itself :)

 

[Odin]

You'll probably find that most of the active community is lukewarm at best on "official" modding support, though I haven't been on Discord much of late which is where it usually comes up!

I don't think opinions have changed much.

Mods that I can get from steam workshop, I tend to use, mods that I have to go to some third party website, like with Stardew, I don't

I can understand that impulse, but I will just say many, many Stardew mods are hosted on NexusMods. While I don't like how the site handles monetization and account sign-up, once you create a free account there it is pretty straight forward to install mods. Obviously it's not quite as low of a hurdle as Steam's system, but in terms of security and safety for people installing mods, I don't think Nexus is really and different from Steam in that regard.

Of course, if you aren't interested in modding the game, that's perfectly ok! I tend not to play with mods myself.