Optional Convoy Mod Synchronization

[Alex-dobr4060]

Enforce Mod Synchronization

a technical problem for the sake of a technical problem, in order to create even more technical problems.
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техническая проблема ради технической проблемы, для того чтобы создать ещё больше технических проблем.

[Deebz__]

But if we port that to reality, we have that:

A: People don't read, don't know and don't care what they do with the game already, as to give them that smoking gun. You said those complains can be ignored, but I don't blame them for not even want to hear about them.
B: I don't think any video game company wants to give their players, from start, an option that ensures that players are going to suffer weird game behavior. Maybe in the future, but not now.
C: Also it would be impossible to do a proper debug of the system that it's starting now if they had to consider the effects of mixed mods
D: Also something to consider is the media perception created with the update. The last any company wants is that Internet ends filled with images and glitches of a game working wrong and without the proper context to explain that image.Maybe in the future, but not at launch time or the perception the public could have is that the release has been a complete disaster.

I’m sorry, but I do not follow your logic here.

A: If people don’t read, what would truly be preferable here? The possibility of savegame corruption from
Installing/uninstalling random mods, or seeing some minor bugs caused by mod desync?

B: Even ignoring savegame corruption, SCS is already introducing a way for players to see possible weirdness with mod support alone. Mods themselves can introduce new bugs into the game that someone who blindly downloads them to join a session may not be aware of, and start complaining about. I’ve already seen multiple users host sessions with outdated, poorly made, harmful mods that have no earthly reason to be synced. If they weren’t, the game weirdness caused by them would be avoided.

C: SCS already offers no support for a modded game and modded convoy. Why would this be any different in that regard?

D: See all of the above…

At the end of the day, modded convoy is a crapshoot regardless of what SCS tries to do. They may as well allow users a degree of freedom if they choose to want it. Especially if it could even avoid issues in some cases.

[Some newbie driver]

I’m sorry, but I do not follow your logic here.

You don't because:

1rst: I see you consider everything only from your point of view of a customer. You still considering all thing only from your CUSTOMER point of view
2nd: You are still considering profile corruption like the worst option because it is that way for you.

So, for the point 1, if you pretend to understand why a company does something; and how to convince them to change; then it's necessary to think in their objectives not only in the customers desires.

And about profile corruption, as I said it before, it's NOT a MP problem, is a MOD USAGE problem. It has been so since the beginning and ANYBODY who plays mods MUST accept it because it's something always there awaiting to catch you with the ward down. So, SCS isn't going to weirdo the playing experience in MP trying to safeguard people playing mixed mods due the fear of profile corruption. Because if they feared that they wouldn't had been supporting mods at all so long.

And yes, I said they support mods, because they DO. They keep a pretty decent and complete documentation, they keep official forums specifically aimed to that, they keep a set of rules about what they allow with mods, they keep a Workshop place in Steam, they release mods made by themselves and now they do an open beta aimed specifically to polish mod support on a main game mode (with FFB as a filler). If that's not "supporting" something, I don't know what it has to be.

What they had been not, are not and will not be are RESPONSIBLE of mods: their outcome and the consequences of using them. When they say they don" support mods" (if they ever use those exact words), what they mean is "don't come requesting us any responsibility". Period.

So, based on that, my logic is:

A: Screw profile corruption, that should be accepted to anybody running mods (included those who click the mod allowed filter in MP lobby). And go to the installing mods option, so no potentially up to 8 people in the session don't come with different complains about weird thing happening in the game. If they have problems, at least it will be the same shared problem.

B: Of course mods can introduce bugs; but they will be shared by all the people present in the session. And they will be more aware of that possibility due all the process of having to sync them first. If everybody enters a session with their different mods that "worked well for me" mindset, and al of a sudden start to see weirdos; the first reaction is always to consider the game guilty not their tens of random mods that who knows when it was last time they were updated. You just need to browse a bit the help sub-forums to see what I'm talking about. If SCS would receive an euro every time somebody says "my mods always worked well until SCS screwed it with the update"; they will be swimnming in gold. Sharing mods means for SCS: claim the host of the session how's that everything is so botched.

C: They are in a beta to debug the usage of mods in MP. How do you expect that debug to be in any way possible if they can't even count on that players will share the same mods? And about the question of the support itself, i just answered that before.

D: No, everything else you said doesn't answer this point. Media perception is internet flooded with images of clipping objects, weird traffic artifacts or whatever the hell the safeguards you propose could cause when trying to block things of different mods depending on the mods others have when they are far or away from me. Media perception is lots of people complaining the game doesn't stop kicking them from sessions. All of this doesn't cause a good perception or press about one release of a game. That's what your suggestion would cause. I'm not saying your intentions aren't good. I'm saying that you didn't considered that SCS don't want tons of people talking only about weirdos after the release.

As I said, I agree about your suggestion from a theoretical point of view. The collateral consequences of its practical application are the ones I didn't buy. And some of them could be sorted or some of them (like the media repercussion) could be diluted with time. So; it's perfectly possible an doable that in future releases SCS allows what you suggest. But at short-mid term, granted it's not an option. MP is still in its diapers; now they add mods to it (I wouldn't have done it, but hey, that's their game to decide about). That's enough chaos, no need to enable for the moment your suggested "happy hour".

Regards

[Deebz__]

And about profile corruption, as I said it before, it's NOT a MP problem, is a MOD USAGE problem. It has been so since the beginning and ANYBODY who plays mods MUST accept it because it's something always there awaiting to catch you with the ward down. So, SCS isn't going to weirdo the playing experience in MP trying to safeguard people playing mixed mods due the fear of profile corruption. Because if they feared that they wouldn't had been supporting mods at all so long.

Regardless of your opinion here, the simple fact is that plenty of people have already complained about profile corruption in this beta from the forced mod sync. It IS an objective problem which is made worse by this approach. This is a simple fact.

And yes, I said they support mods, because they DO. They keep a pretty decent and complete documentation, they keep official forums specifically aimed to that, they keep a set of rules about what they allow with mods, they keep a Workshop place in Steam, they release mods made by themselves and now they do an open beta aimed specifically to polish mod support on a main game mode (with FFB as a filler). If that's not "supporting" something, I don't know what it has to be.

They say right on the main menu that mods are unsupported if you have one installed. Providing documentation for modders, and troubleshooting bugs caused by mods, are two entirely different things.

What they had been not, are not and will not be are RESPONSIBLE of mods: their outcome and the consequences of using them. When they say they don" support mods" (if they ever use those exact words), what they mean is "don't come requesting us any responsibility". Period.

So apparently you already get this. Why would they need to debug issues caused by mod desync then, rather than ignoring them like any other mod issue?

A: Screw profile corruption, that should be accepted to anybody running mods (included those who click the mod allowed filter in MP lobby). And go to the installing mods option, so no potentially up to 8 people in the session don't come with different complains about weird thing happening in the game. If they have problems, at least it will be the same shared problem.

You can't just say "screw this major problem". That is not an acceptable approach to anything. SCS is introducing this possibility more than ever with their current approach. It WILL happen more BECAUSE of forced mod sync in convoy.
As for "at least everyone would encounter the same problem", I think you are overestimating the importance of this. It could make troubleshooting easier, or it could obscure the cause of the problem. In any situation, why would it ever be preferable for more people to have a problem?

B: Of course mods can introduce bugs; but they will be shared by all the people present in the session. And they will be more aware of that possibility due all the process of having to sync them first. If everybody enters a session with their different mods that "worked well for me" mindset, and al of a sudden start to see weirdos; the first reaction is always to consider the game guilty not their tens of random mods that who knows when it was last time they were updated. You just need to browse a bit the help sub-forums to see what I'm talking about. If SCS would receive an euro every time somebody says "my mods always worked well until SCS screwed it with the update"; they will be swimnming in gold. Sharing mods means for SCS: claim the host of the session how's that everything is so botched.

And how exactly would my suggestion change this? If those same less intelligent users are forced to uninstall and install mods just to join a session, they will still blame SCS for forcing that on them and breaking their game, which has ALREADY HAPPENED only a few days into this beta. On top of that, these betas take someone with at least a slight amount of intelligence to opt into. Once everyone is set loose on this, those complaints will become much, MUCH more frequent. Mark my words.

C: They are in a beta to debug the usage of mods in MP. How do you expect that debug to be in any way possible if they can't even count on that players will share the same mods? And about the question of the support itself, i just answered that before.

This is actually a fair point. I have no argument for this. If SCS wants to keep this limit during beta, that is fine. They have showed no indication that this will change when 1.42 is final though, which is why I am suggesting this here. I want mod support to be done right when it is made final.

D: No, everything else you said doesn't answer this point. Media perception is internet flooded with images of clipping objects, weird traffic artifacts or whatever the hell the safeguards you propose could cause when trying to block things of different mods depending on the mods others have when they are far or away from me. Media perception is lots of people complaining the game doesn't stop kicking them from sessions. All of this doesn't cause a good perception or press about one release of a game. That's what your suggestion would cause. I'm not saying your intentions aren't good. I'm saying that you didn't considered that SCS don't want tons of people talking only about weirdos after the release.

And I am saying that you seem to not realize that there are still going to be people talking about weird problems after launch. Let's say immediate profile corruption does not happen, and a poorly made mod ends up screwing up some or all of their trucks. Based on your own logic, the user would naturally blame SCS for "putting out a poor update that broke everything". Whichever way you choose, there WILL be complaints like this from unintelligent users. They may as well go for the way that allows more freedom for people who know what they are doing. Especially since mod desync is only a TEMPORARY problem within that specific convoy session, not a PERMANENT problem which can be caused by installing/uninstalling random mods just to join a convoy session. In both cases, the problems started with joining a convoy session. People will see it like that, as they already have.

As I said, I agree about your suggestion from a theoretical point of view. The collateral consequences of its practical application are the ones I didn't buy. And some of them could be sorted or some of them (like the media repercussion) could be diluted with time. So; it's perfectly possible an doable that in future releases SCS allows what you suggest. But at short-mid term, granted it's not an option. MP is still in its diapers; now they add mods to it (I wouldn't have done it, but hey, that's their game to decide about). That's enough chaos, no need to enable for the moment your suggested "happy hour".

I can only hope they do loosen the restrictions over time, because the current implementation of modded convoy is very useless to me and other people who can't play the game without certain graphics/audio/ui mods, or any other inconsequential-to-mp types of mods. That is why I proposed giving control to the session host when it comes to the enforcement of mod sync, until SCS can come up with something better.

[Some newbie driver]

Regardless of your opinion here, the simple fact is that plenty of people have already complained about profile corruption in this beta from the forced mod sync. It IS an objective problem which is made worse by this approach. This is a simple fact.

The fact that something happens more or less doesn't change the fact that any player modding should be aware for it. Player profile is player's data, is him who should worry about it. It's like when companies complain because they lost data but they had been neglecting by act or omission with the backups. Their data, their responsibility. If your profile do matter you, act accordingly; don't wait others to do something.

They say right on the main menu that mods are unsupported if you have one installed. Providing documentation for modders, and troubleshooting bugs caused by mods, are two entirely different things.

They don't just "provide documentation ". I already listed everything they do so the people could use mods in a pretty safely way. I refuse the argument of saying that there's no support (as is, in general terms) because there's no troubleshooting or because they simplified their own statements using that word carelessly in the forum. "No support" state was when after 1.41 people figured out by themselves how to crank mods and even SCS actively changing things that closed some of those doors. The "no support" argument can't be sustained when the company dedicates the effort of their developers to actively allow people to use mods in the game.

So apparently you already get this. Why would they need to debug issues caused by mod desync then, rather than ignoring them like any other mod issue?

And when I said they had to debug anything due mod desync? Those complains will be ignored like are now those about mods in solo. The nearest to that is when I said they will have more problems to debug THEIR code if the reports from people came from desynced sessions.

You can't just say "screw this major problem". That is not an acceptable approach to anything. SCS is introducing this possibility more than ever with their current approach. It WILL happen more BECAUSE of forced mod sync in convoy.

SCS has been saying us "screw your profile corruption if you mod" since day one. I thought we were agree about that so far. The aren't responsible of the consequences of using mods, remember? And about that happening more now, let's say it plainly: NOBODY should expect LESS profiles corruptions in the starting phases of a beta about mixing mods and multiplayer. Specially when an explicit warning about it was made by SCS since the start. I would expect those problems to help fine tune some things, help modders to do the same on their own works and players in general to be more aware of something that always was there. Think on it about a collective kick in their arses do don't get too overconfident with their profiles.

As for "at least everyone would encounter the same problem", I think you are overestimating the importance of this. It could make troubleshooting easier, or it could obscure the cause of the problem. In any situation, why would it ever be preferable for more people to have a problem?

You have enough computing knowledge to understand the difference between "more people having a problem" (what you say I said) or "more people having THE SAME problem" (what I really said).

And how exactly would my suggestion change this? If those same less intelligent users are forced to uninstall and install mods just to join a session, they will still blame SCS for forcing that on them and breaking their game, which has ALREADY HAPPENED only a few days into this beta. On top of that, these betas take someone with at least a slight amount of intelligence to opt into. Once everyone is set loose on this, those complaints will become much, MUCH more frequent. Mark my words.

Because, as I said, you quoted and didn't understand: "Sharing mods means for SCS: claim the host of the session how's that everything is so botched." If one knows he had to change his settings prior to enter a session that screwed his profile, at least one will have some thoughts about that host's mods. If one goes freely whenever he wants with his 100+ mods folder thinking all fields are green and all of a sudden his profile got screwed; one will automatically blame the game (never his reckless behavior, oh no, that never happens). That the 101 mindset for the average computer user. Deal with them for 20 years and you will know it, granted. And if a mod set doesn't corrupt the host player in soloing, shouldn't corrupt either in MP. So the corruption should come from the opt in /opt out set of mods and that's something that can be fixed (and that''s the objective of the beta). Once in release you could expect more complains due the volume of player, but the % should be way less (otherwise, then you will be right and the release would be a failure).

This is actually a fair point. I have no argument for this. If SCS wants to keep this limit during beta, that is fine. They have showed no indication that this will change when 1.42 is final though, which is why I am suggesting this here. I want mod support to be done right when it is made final.

And that's why I said before that sentence about "all with the SAME problem". Anyway, don't expect that to change after the beta, it will have no sense to debug the beta with this approach and then radically change it for the release. If a change like your suggestion is ever made, it will have its own release and beta (and even possibly, like this one, almost entirely focused).

And I am saying that you seem to not realize that there are still going to be people talking about weird problems after launch. Let's say immediate profile corruption does not happen, and a poorly made mod ends up screwing up some or all of their trucks. Based on your own logic, the user would naturally blame SCS for "putting out a poor update that broke everything". Whichever way you choose, there WILL be complaints like this from unintelligent users. They may as well go for the way that allows more freedom for people who know what they are doing.

I already account for those problems to happen. Point is, if the hosts mix of mods is a mess, he could already flood Internet with his complains when solo-playing. That's unavoidable. The problem with your suggestion is that you can have 8 people with their own set of mods working flawlessly in solo playing and when sharing a MP session everything going weird due the safeguards. That's what will not happen with current SCS approach.

I can only hope they do loosen the restrictions over time, because the current implementation of modded convoy is very useless to me and other people who can't play the game without certain graphics/audio/ui mods, or any other inconsequential-to-mp types of mods. That is why I proposed giving control to the session host when it comes to the enforcement of mod sync, until SCS can come up with something better

As I said, I would had not included mod support so soon. I would rather had extender MP options, functionality and performance. I sincerely didn't expect them to enter the mods/MP minefield so soon. But whatever, they decided so; at least they entered the minefield with a minesweeper.

We had MP with no mods at all since the previous version. I think nobody should had expected that the mod implementation will arrive with full usability since the beginning. I thought that when the moment arrived they would kind of enable certain kind of mods only. But as some explanations had let clear, that's not possible or at least practical. So, their approach has been one that indirectly force players to cherry-pick their mods (and the load order, sometimes the big forgotten one). We will see how things evolve. In the meantime, people in your situation will consider MP as still a no-mods land. Game is reaching 9 years. We have not got MP until 2 and a half months ago. I don't see it's bad to start talking now about some things; but I don't think it's the moment neither the game is ready for certain changes now or soon.

Regards

EDIT: I had to fix some mess with so many quotes.

[PBandJ]

Holy "quote" athon lol.

[Deebz__]

Yeah at this point, I am just going to agree to disagree and see if SCS takes my suggestion lol.

[Zakxaev68]

Pointless debating on any topic with Some newbie driver, lmao.

[KPS_versatile]

Honestly, I am half and half on this.
There is always a way to revert back to the pre-convoy state.
Save game/profile corruption due to mods can easily be avoided by using a different profile, which is what I am doing, by copy-and-pasting my profile and give it a different name. This would be easier if there was an integrated feature in the game menu where we can duplicate our profiles to have MODDED and UNMODDED profiles. Or, just to have a switch to enable/disable mod elements for the save file if there was a way to detect and clear them. Although this may not be feasible because in the case of using non-workshop mods, organizing the 'mod' folder on every occasion is another story.

In my case, I created 3 duplicates of my original profile: one for the 1.41 modded game and the other two for 1.42 testing. One for my personal mods and the other for the mods that a friend and I have in common.

Another issue that I think will be resolved in some way is having to scan or process all the mods in the library regardless of whether they are being used or not. It's just annoying to delete/add several mod files or subscribe/unsubscribe workshop mods just to sync with my friend(s) or to join other servers. The game should be smart enough to only scan for activated mods (and I think this shouldn't be difficult for SCS to resolve this).

I remember back when 1.41 beta had 'DLC compatibility issue where you couldn't join servers if you lacked some DLCs or had more DLCs than the host did. Though was taken care of, and I think it will be somewhat similar for the 1.42 release. Not worrying too much about it.

So, I don't think SCS has a lot to do with this 'mod support' feature but rather the mod authors themselves who will be busier optimizing and coping with this new feature.

In other games, if someone is to join a modded server, downloading the required mods is a given. There really shouldn't be a way around this for the full experience. It is a bit more complicated for ATS because there are many popular mods that are not free of charge.

Joining a modded server without having certain mods just to see the other player in an 'invisible' truck and hauling an 'invisible' trailer is just ridiculous. Or, SCS can implement a 'replacement' mechanism where the modded truck/trailers are replaced with one of the default vehicles with similar configurations (ex. chassis length and type). BUT this can only be possible with modders who are willing to integrate such 'hints' for the game to detect them. I know that some mods actually use default game assets which would make this a lot easier.

Also, I think it all depends on what types of mods we are talking about. For example, if it's simply a texture/graphics/sound enhancement mod, I don't think there is a need to synchronize this because it's not essential. But map/truck/trailer/engine mods that 'ADD' new entities matter more obviously, and I think this is the type of mod that people usually think of. so...

But I still commend SCS for bringing mod support for Convoy. Modded multiplayer is the way to go!

[Some newbie driver]

The better way to save profile from corruption would be plain and simple that no permanent relevant changes were made into the profile while playing MP.

Have you changed your amount of money (up or down). Well, that can remain because it has no impact. Like gaining XP or raising levels. Also the completion of Steam achievements or the login of those jobs in WoTr should be neither a problem. Is somebody would try to take vantage of that is like cheating playing solitaire, who cares?

But have you bought a garage, a truck? Have you changed the options of a truck? Have you changed the vehicles assigned to a driver or hired one? All that kind of stuff should be erased once MP session ended; like the place where you are (teleport back where you was before joining MP session) or the roads discovered. That way the save game can't be blown up due having purchased something that was in a mod (a truck, tuning parts, a garage on a modded city); neither could you be placed on a location from a mod was only active during MP, or doing a job to some company that isn't in your solo-gaming profile. Or due having listed road sectors in the save game that the game engine could not locate later. The same kind of things that had been ruining mods in solo gamin since always.

Profile corruptions doesn't come by the come and forth of mods in MP; profile corruptions come from the fact SCS wanted to give us the opportunity to keep the status of our game as it was once the MP session ended. So, they have to consider everything a random mop could include in the save game that, if that mod was temporal, could then mess the save game. That's what they try to figure it now; ungratefull task for sure. If when playing MP with mods we would have no option but to lose all that kind of changes, there would be no need to worry about profile corruption. It only would be complains about people not wanting to have to purchase again X truck or Y garage. And people moaning because the rollback is ruining their efforts in trying to reach 100% discovery.

Regards