The biggest hurdle to using mods.

[Haydos]

Civ5 is not perfect, with some very simple mods, it can be perfect.

The problem with the mod system is the fact that it is impossible to determine which of the hundreds of mods that exist in the mod browser are actually good mods and are more importantly balanced either with the default game or with other mods. You can view a mods rating and also the number of downloads that mod has received but this information is retained even for mods that are 6 months old and have been made obsolete by official patches or other mods. Sure you can read the mod desciptions, but these are very brief and impossible to verify as to there accuracy.

The solution is to get Firaxis to introduce some better metrics in their mod browser that allows mods to be ranked according to there current popularity or something similar rather then just an historical popularity.

The other solution can be implemented right here at civfanatics. There needs to be some kind of a sub-forum where people can post the list of mods they are currently using in there current games. At the moment civfanatics has hundreds of pages of posts on individual mods, but most of that is outdated and laborious to trawl through to try and find pertinent information that can be used to work out which mods to install right now. There needs to a way for people new to Civ5 or to modding a way in which they can get quick clean information on where to start with regards to tweaking the game so that it can become the game it should be.

Thoughts?

 

[smellymummy]

yeah the online mod browser thing with civ5 IMO was a failure right at the start for many reasons and some outlined in the OP but really if you are already here at civfanatics, while it isn't the fastest or easiest way to get things done: a little searching, reading and comparison can point you to exactly what you want to play with

 

[Mentos]

What is good or bad stuff?

Simply create a new Topic here: "Post your favorite mods here!"

 

[Spatzimaus]

Besides, you're assuming that good mods can only be found through that browser. Adding the sort of "popularity" system to the mod browser wouldn't help with all of the mods that have been handled through other download mechanisms. (Like, say, my own.) And really, would you trust any kind of ranking/popularity system anyway? This IS the Internet, after all. Everything would either get 5 stars or 1, depending on who was voting. (Ever look at ratings on Amazon?)

The bigger problem is that there's often no easy way to tell whether a mod is still being supported; every major patch breaks enough things that many larger mods become nonfunctional across base versions. So how do you know if that mod on the browser will actually work with your game, or if it's something the original designer gave up on months ago? (Yes, I know there's a date on the files. Not the same; I've seen mods posted post-patch that still don't work, and I've seen pre-patch mods that still work just fine because they didn't change anything that conflicted.)

This is why these boards are so useful; find the thread for the mod in question, and see if it's still active and what people say about it. Ta da. As an added bonus, these threads will often tell you which other mods are known to be compatible or incompatible, which is very useful if you're the kind of person that wants to download a dozen disjoint mods just because they each sound like a good idea.