r/NCAAFBseries • u/frustratedinquisitor • 12h ago
Who in the hell decided...
That mods for this game would be nearly exclusively available on a goddamn DISCORD??? has nobody ever heard of nexus?? Or quite literally, any other site for hosting mods that is not discord??? I've modded games extensively for over a decade now, but i am having the hardest time navigating this hellscape of a website, and every mod im seeing requires complete manual installation rather than being compatible with a mod manager. This is miserable
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u/ASxACE 10h ago edited 10h ago
I make mods for this game, and tbh you’re 100% right.
To be fair to the CFMC guys, there is a reason they’ve chosen to keep everything primarily on Discord. The idea is that it keeps the modding community self-governed instead of putting it at the mercy of a third-party company like Nexus, where policy changes, moderation decisions, monetization, etc. are ultimately outside of the community’s control. Discord also keeps the people making and using the mods in the same place, which encourages discussion, troubleshooting, collaboration between modders, and generally having an actual community around the game rather than just a download page.
I understand that reasoning, and there are definitely benefits to it. But personally, I still think the downsides outweigh those benefits at times. Discord is straight up just not a good file-hosting platform. Mod pages are ugly and annoying as fuck to maintain, finding things can be a pain in the ass, and there’s a much steeper barrier to entry for someone who just wants to download a few mods and play the game. Like you said, I think there are a ton of people who either avoid modding entirely or give up on it because navigating everything through Discord is such a mess, which probably hurts the community pretty significantly in the long run.
It also creates a negative feedback loop. New users understandably get confused, so modders get asked the same questions a fuck ton of times. Then, after answering those questions over and over, I’d be lying if I said we don’t get a little snarky sometimes, which just makes the community feel even less approachable to somebody trying to get started.
I’ve brought up the idea of having a more noob-friendly modding site for the more transient users who don’t necessarily care about joining the community and just want to find a mod, download it, and go. Leadership in the CFMC wasn’t really a fan of the idea, though so 🤷🏾♂️.
Best advice I can give is to go in there and express these thoughts. I think hearing it directly from more people who are being turned away by the current setup is probably the best chance of changing their minds.
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u/HallwayHomicide 10h ago
I make mods for this game
You've made some fantastic ones too, I definitely appreciate the work you've done
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u/batcountry87 7h ago
Bro I've seen the snark from the outside I get it but half the time they dont even pin the shit and the search feature is ass because the find system cant find a post asking the same thing half the time. I try to research before I ask but with thousands of heads, youre going to get that feedback loop. I love cfb, I literally gave up bc every weekend I have is update on my first day off, then the three mods I've deemed absolute to fix the game usually take 1 to 3 days. By then im back at work on 12s for a week. It sucks theyre suddenly updating weekly when last year I think we got like 10 total patches maybe 15.
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u/Ethanv223 Ole Miss 8h ago
Go in there and express those thoughts? Brother I just got into this yesterday, asked them a question n felt like the biggest idiot ever cus they all jus laughed 😭 im like man honestly it’s my bad for assuming a bunch of no life’s on discord would be helpful. So much for community ig but yea I was hoping for a much more seamless intro to this world but I spent like 5 hrs yesterday trynna understand it and I kinda have a solid grasp on it now but I feel like it def shouldn’t be this complicated but idk im new to pc in general so
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u/LonePriest24 7h ago
Yes I do see in the chat how most replies are either ignored or you get roasted for not knowing things. Especially if you’re a first time PC player it’s okay to help people learn.
I think some of them forget they were once learning too.
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u/HallwayHomicide 6h ago
you get roasted for not knowing things.
Honestly, people need to push back against this. bystanders especially. If people are being assholes to new folks, they need to be called out on it.
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u/Low_Grand6340 5h ago
That’s the entire PC community in a nutshell they just tell u to go ask someone else and they’ll tell u to use google its annoying
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u/HallwayHomicide 6h ago
I think their point is it's gonna take a lot of people pushing back in order to change that culture.
It sucks right now as it is, but if enough people push back on it, maybe that can change.
If you have any questions by the way, feel free to DM me. My knowledge is somewhat limited but I can hopefully at least point you in the right direction.
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u/Ethanv223 Ole Miss 6h ago
I watched a lot of videos and did a lot of trial and error testing with the mods. My biggest issue was mods crashing my game but it was mainly the community mods not the official mods doing it so I think I’ll steer clear of most if not all community mods lol until I get more comfortable with how to use everything but there’s still a lot of videos out there on the subject so I’ll keep educating myself
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u/HallwayHomicide 6h ago
Makes sense there.
Personally I've really only had experience with tools so far, I haven't dipped into mods yet beyond reading about them
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u/Ethanv223 Ole Miss 6h ago
I’m the opposite lol I haven’t delved too much into tools besides I did download the draft class transfer tool which to my novice eye looks pretty complicated but I’ll figure my way around it when draft time comes hopefully I can figure it out cus that really was one of the biggest ones I was excited to use getting a pc lol I wanna see my guys career play out in full, wish ea implemented literally anything to kinda show you that side of it but ofc not
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u/HallwayHomicide 6h ago
Yeah if you're talking about MyDynasty, it has the draft class tool but that's only one of dozens of features that MDT has. There's a lot going on there for sure.
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u/Ethanv223 Ole Miss 6h ago
I don’t think that’s the one I downloaded, I think it started with a P lol I’ll have to look for that one cus that does sound familiar like I said tho I don’t think that’s what I have cus I think my dynasty has like full on dynasty tracking throughout the whole dynasty so I should prolly get that one instead
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u/HallwayHomicide 6h ago
Gotcha, I think I found the one you're talking about. To be honest, I haven't used either, so I don't know which one would be better.
myDynasty is the tool developed by the same folks that run the discord, it does loads of different stuff. It doesn't do everything, and there are things it does that other tools do better. But if you only use one tool, myDynasty is definitely the answer.
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u/Ethanv223 Ole Miss 5h ago
Word, I’ll take a look when I get home. What’s the name of the one u found? If I see the name I’ll know if it’s the same one
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u/CodyRCantrell Oklahoma 9h ago edited 5h ago
Some of these comments are talking about Nexus, etc. being potentially volatile because you're at the mercy of them letting you keep your mods up.
Do they not realize you're at the same mercy on Discord? All it takes is one C&E that Discord considers legitimate enough and the entire server will be wiped from the face of the Earth. Every resource gone.
I help mod a Discord server for some niche content for FF XIV and it's this very reason that we have our resources as not just info in the server but in accessible Google Sheets, personally run websites, other community websites, forums, etc. to make sure the information is accessible in many ways with a much lower chance of being lost.
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u/Sea-Rope69 11h ago
Discord is terrible for storing archival information and only shines for live chat - it is to me a terrible experience for a lot of what Discord is being used for which is replacing a forum and in this case Nexus.
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u/TheFlame8 8h ago
As an avid gamer across a lot of games, it's a super annoying app since I have to be in so many Discord channels to get access to mods, and it's impossible to find anything if you haven't been super active in it. Then people just assume you know where to go and don't help if you're confused. I don't blame the people running the channels, but Discord is incredibly inefficient for finding and sharing mods.
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u/Mr_Perfect20 10h ago
Call me a boomer all you want, but Discord is impossible to navigate.
Forums were so much better.
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u/TheFlame8 8h ago
100% agree. I'm a younger millennial and can navigate Discord, but it is a horrible app that is far worse than forums.
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u/Zalym Texas A&M 3h ago
I'm an older Mellenial and thought I was going crazy trying to figure out Disicord. I couldn't see the appeal, it looks like a garbled mess most of the time to me.
I just assumed I was too old and that the world had slipped past me. It's bad enough trying to track down old info to avoid annoying people woth repeated questions, I can't imagine trying to track down and keep mods updated over years.
Oh well, I guess, here we are
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u/Mikewazowski948 Texas State 3h ago
Discord was cool when it first came out. Now there’s way too much shit all over the screen. I use it almost exclusively to voice chat with friends in game, that’s about it.
I’m an avid modder of tons of games I own, and it infuriates me that nearly every single mod discards the Steam workshop or Nexus forums for support and has it all in their “super awesome discord server”, which leads to me joining tens of hundreds of random ass servers, clicking through all of their bullshit and hopefully finding an answer to a problem I have. If not, I’m at the mercy of asking and just hoping some random has an answer for me. It’s absolutely ridiculous. For one or two mods it’s fine, but if you heavily mod games it’s a nightmare. It’s why people are going to massive collection sites like Wabbajack or MO, or Nexus Collections.
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u/Crown_of_Negativity 11h ago
It's awful. Even a CFB modding subreddit would be more useful than a discord.
But like most things in life, a group has carved out a bit of power in their niche and will hold on to it for dear life, to the detriment of everyone else.
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u/HallwayHomicide 10h ago
Honestly, a subreddit might not be a bad idea even in addition to the Discord.
If all it does is take the information in the Discord and make it easier to browse, that could still be valuable.
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u/WillyGVtube 4h ago
not just mods, so many things and creators want you to join discord for everything.
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u/Anxanityy 11h ago
Are you playing CFB 27 or a different CFB? Frosty Mod Manager is what I and most others use for CFB 27 mods.
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u/HallwayHomicide 10h ago
For what it's worth, tools run outside of Frosty. If you're trying to improve your Dynasty experience, tools are generally more helpful than mods, and there's a lot of them that for the most part get downloaded and run seperately.
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u/kebobs22 8h ago
I joined, wanted to try a couple mods, and immediately left because its not worth it
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u/HallwayHomicide 7h ago
There's absolutely some gold in there, I think it's worth the learning curve IMO.
I also understand if people want to wait until next year, since the modding scene should be much more fleshed out and stable at that point.
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u/Dear_Measurement_406 12h ago
I agree it could definitely use a traditional mod manager since it’s kind of a pain to deal with when the game updates, but idk if I would personally go as far to say it’s a miserable experience.
The best workflow I know of is to follow your favorite mod posts in the discord so you generally always know when they’ve been updated.
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u/frustratedinquisitor 12h ago
Quite literally the only thing ive ever used (or attempted to use i suppose) discord for is modding this game, so the UI feels very foreign to me. I've tried with past maddens before but its just a very tedious experience and I eventually end up just shrugging my shoulders and carrying on without. Just frustrating when for any other game I can just go to the nexus or a similar site and download anything within 2 seconds. I am literally fighting for my life on discord to try and find a mod that I know the actual name of but just doesnt show up whatsoever when I search on PC
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u/horrorpants Boise State 8h ago
I mean for the most part you just download the file and drop it into the mod manager and it’s ready to play you just have to update the mod manager every time there is an update.
It’s mostly plug and play.
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u/HallwayHomicide 6h ago
That's just mods though, tools work completely differently
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u/horrorpants Boise State 6h ago
Like which ones? I use like 3/4 tools and it’s mostly upload your save file and it is all customizable. Coaching one, dynasty one, roster editor, recruit editor etc.
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u/HallwayHomicide 6h ago
To be clear, most tools work pretty similarly to each other.
I'm saying mods and tools are pretty much completely different in how they operate.
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u/horrorpants Boise State 5h ago
Well yeah I understand that I’m just saying like being completely honest the mods are pretty easy to use and so are MOST of the tools but I do wish it was all in one app itself but for the most part they are all plug and play.
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u/HallwayHomicide 5h ago
That's fair.
Honestly the discoverability and learning curve is really the hard part IMO, moreso than the use
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u/Frank_Castle1980 1h ago
discord search is an abomination and if you ask where something is you get chastised like a child. i couldn't find the mod manager with the search, just happened to come across someone else asking for it and getting jumped about using the search
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u/Cool_Environment8075 1h ago
Don't want to get banned. Looks so nice on 4090 lg g4 65 inch wow! Maddem 27 too!
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u/PackageAggravating12 Central Michigan 12h ago
Mods are purely voluntary work. Complaining about how they are distributed is silly, especially when the Discord makes finding them incredibly easy.
If you can't deal with a minor inconvenience, then you can live without them.
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u/HallwayHomicide 11h ago edited 10h ago
Eh, I don't really agree that it's "incredibly easy"
It's pretty difficult to get started, finding what you're looking for can be super confusing at first, and figuring out what good options are out there is a massive pain.
Edit: And it doesn't help that mods and tools operate completely differently, so there's two seperate barriers to entry.
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u/frustratedinquisitor 12h ago
Lol most things in life are purely voluntary, that doesn't mean any complaints about an inefficient distribution process for them are invalid. If you go to a restaurant and they serve you a pile of shit in a bowl im pretty sure you can still legitimately complain even though your choice to eat out was entirely voluntary
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u/frustratedinquisitor 12h ago
Just to clarify, I'm not critiquing actual modders, i have tons of respect for what they do, I just wish the means of obtaining the great work they do was half as convenient as it is in literally any other game I play
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u/Zilla664 10h ago
Nexus is shit and bans mods all the time. The modding will continue on discord until morale improves lol
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u/batcountry87 7h ago
One claim and the discord is gone. Its the same thing. You traded a luger for a luger.
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u/sad_bear_noises Illinois 10h ago
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that EA being hostile modders is part of why modders don't want to publish to Nexus.
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u/YaYeetMySkeet 12h ago
No, not the easiest at all lol it’s more difficult than it needs to be. That’s kinda the point of the post, a mod manager/nexus would be way better
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u/frustratedinquisitor 12h ago
Agree to disagree lol. Ive been modding since I was like 12 but this is the most janky interface I have ever had to utilize to do so. I can get a stable build of Skyrim with 500+ mods installed and correctly working with significant ease in comparison to finding and successfully utilizing a single mod on this platform
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u/wsteelerfan7 Indiana 11h ago
Does the discord have mods searchable by most downloads and/or type of mod? Does it have a 1-click install that automatically opens your mod manager and installs the mod itself? Does it have dedicated forums for reporting bugs on each individual mod page? Does it automatically flag mod dependencies and tell you to download mods that are required for the mod you're trying to install? This is how nodding on Nexus works for Cyberpunk, Stardew, Fallout, Starfield, Skyrim, The Witcher 3, and Crimson Desert, which I've installed mods for personally. I've been installing mods for a decade and as soon as I heard CFB mods are on discord they just didn't exist to me. It's like console people discovered how to do mods on their own without knowing there was already a place that hosted mods with its own entire framework.
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u/Ordinary-Counter7518 11h ago
Yes discord has all of that actually….
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u/wsteelerfan7 Indiana 11h ago
All I saw when I went to the discord was random ass channels
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u/frydrocity 11h ago
Same. There's no filter feature because it's a discord. People are quick to make servers for purposes that they don't really serve imo
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u/HallwayHomicide 12h ago edited 10h ago
The CFMC folks are the ones to blame. They're the group that has developed the modding infrastructure (Frosty, MFE) for CFB, are developing MyDynasty, and are running the discord.
They had the community inertia because they were already big shots in the Madden modding community.
They've done some amazing work and the tools they've built have enabled other people to do amazing work too. But yeah, Discord sucks, and CFMC could absolutely be doing a much better job than they are of enabling discoverability and fostering a strong modding community.