1 - If something is lesser than and a mod makes it greater than, I would say that it was "fixed" regardless of how many players utilize it. Tree falling in the woods and nobody's around, etc. That doesn't quite hold up in a logic equation argument.

2 - Because they can get away with the bare minimum? If you had a job and realized you can get paid the same amount of money and do less each day, you'd probably figure out what the limit is, wouldn't you?

I don't know actually - how many PC copies of Skyrim did they sell?

Dude, please. 5 million is a large number without taking any single other thing into account.

They're not the only AAA company accused of this, but they're one of the few that provides tools for extensive modding.

I agree that there are a lot of WTFs, and I often wonder if they even test on PC--I know they do, but I can't believe some of their decisions. The UIs, for example, are always horrible. FOV is another typical issue, but it's easily adjustable, which isn't true for many games.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=551069501&tscn=1447077828 for FOV, Mouse acceleration and a few other things. There are a couple of issues with FOV tweaks that didn't happen in previous games. Occasionally during the dialog zoom a small section of the screen on the right and bottom doesn't sync with the dialog mode, as if dialog mode is a window running at a smaller resolution on top of the screen. The same thing occasionally happens with scope zoom.

Anyway, saying mods make devs lazy is like saying doctors make people sick, or pipes break because of plumbers. BGS designs the game and prioritizes for what they like. Like I said, I think some of their decisions are wrong headed, but don't blame mods for that. Think of it as one of the things they do right, that also allows us to fix and expand their games.

You are supposed to be the one who has worked on, what did you say "31 titles" and yet all you seem to do is attack the publisher.

Number of copies sold is a bit tricky question. However Steamspy averages the number of owners at roughly http://steamspy.com/app/72850.

That would tend to suggest that over half, that show up on steam anyway, use the UI mod.

Holy crap that is a lot.

I'd have to question though if "5 million unique D/Ls" of SKYUI, _really_ means 5 million different users. I for one have had installed it on at least two, probably three different machines.

Good, glad you remember my work history as a QA Engineer. Making sure the games and non-game software I worked on wasn't buggy. Still doesn't explain away why you've claimed twice that anyone that asks for fixes is a "conspiracy theorist", or is "irrational", or "insane."

Beth broke it. In the past, we've had to wait for modders to fix it (weeks), then wait for Steam to vet and package those mods as downloaded packages (months). The fact that console people don't have a problem (repeatedly) and PC people have a problem (repeatedly) does not mean that people who are angry at the same mistakes over and over are claiming conspiracy. I have said in previous posts that I like the game BUT I want bugs fixed. I don't want modders to do it, I want things that are easy fixes fixed quickly by the developer. I know what is easy to fix and what isn't. If you search my posts you will see that.

*text removed-please don't moderate other members and please don't bring up politics*

Then you shouldn't be gaming on the PC. Because most PC gamers will tell you they want the exact opposite. A game that's restricted and doesn't allow modding is doomed to die very quickly. Games that can be modded you'll see being playing years later not because the mods fix lazy developer problems... but add much wanted content. Skyrim is a prime example of that.

If you are waiting on the steam workshop, you're wasting time, seriously. I prefer the Nexus for my modding needs. Not to mention, people that just grab mods off the workshop ... as many probably do, generally are not the type to actually use tools to get mods to play nice together.

Yeah, I don't recall having any problems with Skyrim and Fallout 3 I stopped playing at first and a year later Steam had everything fixed. I may just have to svck it up and trust "number of downloads" in the mod community because I don't want to stop playing F4 for a year like I did 3. Still, there's always hope Beth will whip out some basic stuff in a quick patch.

What's so wrong about gaming developers giving consumers incentives for creativity? It is a privilege to have the ok to mod their games to our liking. To have a say in what our creativity can add to the overall experience is a privilege. Logic says that it increases the player retention which greatly increases its longevity. Its a mutually healthy and beneficial exchange. Its not lazy. Its smart.

What you are talking about is a far cry from releasing buggy or underwhelming versions and letting the community fix it.

+1 Well said!

Although "lazy" (or as I prefer "gifted at strategic procrastination") and "smart" are not necessarily mutually exclusive

It's not that, it's the rule of one.

One mod changes an npc's hair, a second mod changes the eyes, a third mod changes the outfit. Only the last one loaded will apply changes. So it's not simply a matter of trusting number of downloads, its making sure mods don't conflict. In Skyrim, Wrye Bash and TES5Edit were necessary tools.

Daggerfall is the buggiest game Bethesda has ever produced. And it was not moddable. I fail to see how modding has made Bethesda more "lazy" in terms of patching their games.

Folks please remember that we may disagree without making it personal.

I don't think they're being lazy. Fallout 4 still has some great improvements over the last games, as for everything they cut, I think they somehow thought those things weren't important.

And if they really were being lazy there would be a ton of other things that the game wouldn't have. Character customiztion would be much less elaborate. We wouldn't even have customizable weapons. And enemy characters wouldn't have any dodging behaviors at all and we'd be stuck with original xbox generation animations.

We have these things at least, you have to be able to see that there was a lot of effort put into this game that wasn't made before in Beth games. Some things did get cut, but other areas are still improving.

I'd recommend using number of downloads, rating, and ideally also user reviews from the nexus. Occasionally a placebo mod or poorly made mod catches fire and becomes relatively popular.

Also as per Pathanias comment above. mods may be installed that conflict without obviously breaking the game, so you have to do some research if you use a lot of mods, otherwise at best you won't be getting the changes you think you're getting, or at worst you'll end up with an unplayable game.

Just to be pedantic though, you usually won't run into trouble installing both a hair mod and a gun mod. It's when you install one gun mod that changes stats and another that changes the texture or whatever. BGS games have database records for all the objects in the game, and each record contains many fields (damage, weight, texture, model, etc.). No matter how many mods you use, only one mod can make changes to any given record. So if you have 3 mods that modify hunting rifles (in almost any way), only one of those mods changes for the hunting rifle will be applied. In order to get around this, you need to use tools such as Wrye Bash or TES5Edit to merge mods.

I don't want to be the person that says "OMG, I CAN'T BELIVE YOU WROTE THAT!" but you know, I really can't believe you wrote that.

There have been games released that are so bad at release that modding would have saved them, but are designed by the company to unmoddable or extremely difficult to mod. Modding would have saved the games.

Modding adds years to the life and profitiability of games. Did you know you can buy Morrowind on STEAM? I don't know how many people buy it but I did about a year ago. I have another copy somewhere but my STEAM copy is there and easy to access. And I bought it so I could play a mod.

I'm still playing Skyrim because of mods. And Oblivion. And Fallout 3.

This keeps me playing the game. It keeps me talking about it. And it keeps other people buying them.

I, frankly, don't think Bethesda is a lazy company. But that's just my opinion.

I mean, that's kind of our point.

Only a few people actually use mods, and yet Bethesda leaves literally thousands of bugs in each of their games for modders to fix. It's baffling.

I am so lucky I'm seriously locked into a game already. I will wait for the awful UI and some combat stuff to be fixed before I seriously play this game.

The shooter part is bad, always was but a modded F3, is a far better shooter.

I dunno. I'll just go back to ESO, I have so much to do there and because it's a fluid, great movement and control game it makes F4 feel broken.