Do the developers plan on including superior mods in base game

[Pericles]

Anyone have any idea whether the developers plan on including some of the better mods in the base games of CMFB and so on?

I have been having a look at screenshots of the Aris smoke and dust mod and it is clearly superior to what is offered in the base game. 

The only reasons I can think that they wouldn't be included in future versions is:

1) Developers would have to pay the makers of these mods an amount of money that is unreasonable

2) There are serious technical barriers to including the mods in future versions of the game

[sttp]

Do the most popular mods, like Aris', affect performance/framerate at all? I actually don't know the answer to that question. That's the reason that first springs to mind for me.

Or maybe it's just the extra development time it would take? BF is small, and it seems like each employee is already extremely busy.

[Erwin]

My understanding is that the computer system has to unload the default graphic to replace with the mod, and that slows the initial loading time.  The more mods, the slower.

What makes things even more complex is there are wonderful mods which duplicate each other - esp in sound mods.  If the system has to load and unload and load multiple times that can really slow loading of he game (or at least that is what I seem to have experienced in my heavily modded games). 

I like the idea of the uncontroversially best mods being part of the default game.  Trying to figure out which mods are best takes longer than playing the game.

[A Canadian Cat]

No, no, no, no, NO! That is not how loading mods works.

How do I know?  Empirically.  It has been shown that mods have very little effect on load times:

Given that the actual behaviour is nothing like @Erwin's hypothetical load method, the game absolutely does NOT loads mods that way.  As you can see there is a slight increase in load times but nothing like what would happen if the behaviour was to load default data files and then replace them with another one and so on and so on.  A far more likely scenario is that the game knows what data files it needs to load and it conducts a search of the mod directory to find the correct file to load.  The rules are straightforward and deterministic (last file in alphabetical order with the desired name is loaded).

[The Steppenwulf]

Further to Ian's response, the reason why players might experience slower load times with mods is because modded textures frequently use higher resolutions than stock and the files are therefore larger. Such files will, quite logically, lengthen overall load times, though you'd perhaps need a fair few files -such as all the ground textures in high res - to note a clear measurable diff.

[A Canadian Cat]

Good point - that too.

[Erwin]

I would hope that mods don't affect the loading time of games.  However, I noticed much faster loading when I have no user-made mods.  When I have around 17-20GB of mods the game loads much slower.

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, Erwin said:

When I have around 17-20GB of mods the game loads much slower.

The whole basic game only takes up around 15GB, with about 10GB as .brz files. So your mod collection adds more than double that amount of data. This extra data naturally takes longer to load.

Part of the reason mods improve the look of the game is not only that the modders are better artists than the ones working for Battlefront. It's also that they blow the texture memory budget.

[sburke]

4 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

The whole basic game only takes up around 15GB, with about 10GB as .brz files. So your mod collection adds more than double that amount of data. This extra data naturally takes longer to load.

Part of the reason mods improve the look of the game is not only that the modders are better artists than the ones working for Battlefront. It's also that they blow the texture memory budget.

Just because I will contest the expression "better artists".  Mikey does great work but he has to do all the textures for everything within a given time frame and with constraints determined in advance that he can't just blow out the memory budget as the game has to run with the expectation of slower spec'd customer equipment.  Given modders do not have to operate under any of the constraints MikeyD does, I think a better expression might be "unconstrained artists".  Just sayin 

[Bulletpoint]

5 minutes ago, sburke said:

Given modders do not have to operate under any of the constraints MikeyD does, I think a better expression might be "unconstrained artists".  Just sayin 

That was the point I was trying to make actually. One of the downsides about mods is that they tend to bloat and use excessive system resources.

I used to play a mod called Project Reality for Battlefield 2, and it was great until it started running slower and slower for each successive patch. I could not tell any difference in graphics quality, and I assume that the modders started to use thousands of unneccesary polygons and texture layers for small things like weapons triggers. Eventually I could not play the game any more, despite it being a really great mod for gameplay.

[sburke]

Yeah just figured to be explicit as it goes back to the OP, "better" is a fuzzy term. If switching to those mods impacts a portion of the user base that can not fork over for a better machine is that "better".  As it is we have the ability to include or not based on our individual situation. I think BF's current stance is the best one for the user base as a whole.  Not to mention who decides what are "best" mods.   Okay okay, I'll do it if you all insist.  

[Pericles]

It seems like there are two arguments - one economic, the other technical - running in this thread:

1) Battlefront does not include mods because they do not have the resources to include them right now (including the resources to compare mods)

2) Battlefront does not include mods because this would slow down frame rates and loading times and negatively affect their customer base

We can all agree that Battlefront's decision not to include superior mods (mods that unequivocally look better than what is offered in the base game) is probably a mixture of both concerns. But I believe they would be able to compromise by including a limited number of mods. For example, ignore the texture mods and focus on the sound and ballistics-related mods instead (e.g. tracers, smoke, etc.). I can't see this being a huge strain on resources. 

If they were modest (#nopun) about what they included, they would not affect performance for the vast majority of Battlefront customers. 

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

The whole basic game only takes up around 15GB, with about 10GB as .brz files. So your mod collection adds more than double that amount of data. This extra data naturally takes longer to load.

Part of the reason mods improve the look of the game is not only that the modders are better artists than the ones working for Battlefront. It's also that they blow the texture memory budget.

Well. yes, that was my point in my earlier post - if anyone bothers to look at the start of this thread re performance. 

And then Ian responds with this:  "No, no, no, no, NO! That is not how loading mods works.  How do I know?  Empirically.  It has been shown that mods have very little effect on load times."

So you guys go fight this one out plz.

[Bulletpoint]

30 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Well. yes, that was my point in my earlier post - if anyone bothers to look at the start of this thread re performance. 

And then Ian responds with this:  "No, no, no, no, NO! That is not how loading mods works.  How do I know?  Empirically.  It has been shown that mods have very little effect on load times."

So you guys go fight this one out plz.

You said the reason for the slowdown was that the game loads and unloads textures several times. I'm responding that I think it's just because you're using bigger textures that the game has to load for longer.

I have no interest in fighting anything out with anyone - my comment was only meant to be helpful.

[Erwin]

I didn't mean to attack you if that's what it sounds like.  I said "mods" including graphics and sound mods.  The point is that a lot of mods in the Z folder does slow down loading.  We don't need to be pedantic about it.   He may be correct in many other items.  In this one, I think Ian's response was incorrect.

[MG TOW]

We are venturing into the eye of the beholder territory and I'm not talking dungeons and dragons. I appreciate seeing bolts on my tanks, road wheels, and not having color filtered into the high ranges or detail smudged over with a smear brush. My eye picks up on every 4th pixel troop  with the same rip on his left knee. And seeing rusty tanks that look more post apocalypse than day of defeat. Sure the Germans were great tank washers, fixers, and painters even when they were down to their last six, and those tanks stayed that way for 30 seconds, but mud and snow is present too. Personally I do'n use alot of art mods anymore. But I think what mods are there look very good, so its great to have variety.

[Bulletpoint]

7 hours ago, gundolf said:

My eye picks up on every 4th pixel troop  with the same rip on his left knee.

That's impressive. I thought I had a critical eye