What Is Everyone's Criteria for Rating Mods?

[blue_painted]

I seem to be following the popular trend: a mod that makes my playing experience significantly better gets five stars, anything else doesn't.

[jeremyj621]

The rating systems needs a comment section so if you give it a bad rating you can explain why. This would give valuable feedback to the modders. Even if it's just a multiple choice option

I totally agree with this. A rating system without comments doesn't tell the whole story. Since the rating is based on the overall average, even breaking down the rating would help, for example x number or percentage of voters rated 5 stars, x number/percentage for 4 stars, etc.

[jeremyj621]

And if the mod is bugged

To be fair here, if the mod is bugged Giants are getting 1 star and not the author of the mod.
There shouldn't be bugged mods on modhub so that is on giants and not on the modder.

There are bugs that do pop up after testing

I've come across a few mods here on the mod hub that do have bugs that somehow slipped through testing. The mod may work as long as I (the player) use it, but once I hire an AI worker to use it, that's when the bugs show up. For example, I downloaded an offset plow that worked until I hired an AI worker. The worker got "confused" and couldn't figure out how to turn it around at the end of a pass. That's something that should have been caught in testing.

[deerefarm]

For the most part I do not do ratings unless the mod really improves my gameplay, or is a great looking mod. In which case I'll give it 5 stars. For the most part if the mod isn't any good or doesn't work properly I'll just uninstall it and moved on. It's one of the reasons I stopped doing mod reviews on my youtube channel. Take two similar mods, I don't want to say this mod is great and this mod is terrible especially as the mod that isn't quite so good may have been done by a new modder and a I don't want to discourage new modders.
I'm sure if I was to make a new map it wouldn't look like something a map from Bulletbill or Alienjim ect.
As for some sort of feedback form I agree that it should be something we have especially as there are quite a few modders that don't have a way of contacting them. Even if it's private, there should be a way of saying "hey I'm having X problem with your mod". Maybe there is and I just don't know about it.

To be fair here, if the mod is bugged Giants are getting 1 star and not the author of the mod.
There shouldn't be bugged mods on modhub so that is on giants and not on the modder.

There are bugs that do pop up after testing

I've come across a few mods here on the mod hub that do have bugs that somehow slipped through testing. The mod may work as long as I (the player) use it, but once I hire an AI worker to use it, that's when the bugs show up. For example, I downloaded an offset plow that worked until I hired an AI worker. The worker got "confused" and couldn't figure out how to turn it around at the end of a pass. That's something that should have been caught in testing.

I think that's what Zero76 is trying to say. However the 1 Star sadly reflects the author of the mod and not Giant's testing process.
I think I must have used the same plow, worked great till I put a worker on it, then it started flipping out. Simple solution, mod got removed from my mod folder.

[BulletBill]

It would probably be fairer if GIANTS really want to keep a rating system for mods to just have a simple "Like" or "Dislike".
Or even just a "Like", no dislike at all so there's no ability to be negative about any mod. Could call it "recommend this mod" and if you would recommend it, tick that box.

[TheSuBBie]

It would probably be fairer if GIANTS really want to keep a rating system for mods to just have a simple "Like" or "Dislike".
Or even just a "Like", no dislike at all so there's no ability to be negative about any mod. Could call it "recommend this mod" and if you would recommend it, tick that box.

Ah, but then Giants would have to give a fixed payement (depending on the type of mod) to the modder, as it is now they save a lot of money with the current rating system, anything below 4 and the modder only receives half (although the ratings go from 1 - 5) of the current modHub rewards for his mod.

[BulletBill]

It would probably be fairer if GIANTS really want to keep a rating system for mods to just have a simple "Like" or "Dislike".
Or even just a "Like", no dislike at all so there's no ability to be negative about any mod. Could call it "recommend this mod" and if you would recommend it, tick that box.

Ah, but then Giants would have to give a fixed payement (depending on the type of mod) to the modder, as it is now they save a lot of money with the current rating system, anything below 4 and the modder only receives half (although the ratings go from 1 - 5) of the current modHub rewards for his mod.

Personally I would love to see the reward system scrapped completely. All it does is encourage modders who are only in it for the money and they never produce anything worthwhile as they are only about quantity not quality.

[LMoonlight]

Personally I would love to see the reward system scrapped completely. All it does is encourage modders who are only in it for the money and they never produce anything worthwhile as they are only about quantity not quality.

Apart from the fact that even a modder can not live on air and love ... it's of course an additional incentive if you get something back from the company in return for the invested time.

The last sentence does not allow 'for my understanding' any exceptions. Maybe I should reconsider my way of working, then I could have smoothly saved myself the last 3 weeks of time to convert a mod from the LS19 for the LS22 and make it placeable. Quantity I had finished 3 weeks ago. Quality hopefully now. At least with the currently possible shader selection options.

[deerefarm]

It would probably be fairer if GIANTS really want to keep a rating system for mods to just have a simple "Like" or "Dislike".
Or even just a "Like", no dislike at all so there's no ability to be negative about any mod. Could call it "recommend this mod" and if you would recommend it, tick that box.

Ah, but then Giants would have to give a fixed payement (depending on the type of mod) to the modder, as it is now they save a lot of money with the current rating system, anything below 4 and the modder only receives half (although the ratings go from 1 - 5) of the current modHub rewards for his mod.

Personally I would love to see the reward system scrapped completely. All it does is encourage modders who are only in it for the money and they never produce anything worthwhile as they are only about quantity not quality.

Interesting I didn't realize that modders received money for putting mods on modhub. That explains why some modders as you say just put mods on modhub and then don't do anything else with them, except moving on and making a new mod. So as you say the current system rewards quantity over quality, which is too bad.

[wheelmansteve]

It just has to work. I've only downrated two mods ever- one was a large baler in 19 that had a much narrower pickup than any of the base game balers, and the other is a roller in 22 that doesn't, well, roll.

[bossmanslim]

I generally don't rate mods unless they are excellent or terrible. I also don't believe the ratings system because there are some rather average mods that are 4 star are above.

If Giants had feedback, I'd care more about the rating system, but as is, the rating system just seems like a blind rating for the mod developers to guess at why they go a rating one way or the other.

[humbe]

... I also don't believe the ratings system because there are some rather average mods that are 4 star are above. ...

But the mod might not be average to someone else..

Let say a mod works for a player that don't use AI helpers, don't play multiplayer and don't use courseplay. If they really likes realism they might like mod X and whomever is not in that group might think it's stuff.. Maybe because it then bugs in various scenarios..

But the person creating that mod may have made it for himself and some friends.. And then someone else wanted to use it too, and they were kind enough to use 100 hours of their time to get it through Giants process of submitting it into modhub, and then they make a tiny income from doing so. Does that person deserve a load of nasty comments and poor ratings from people that wasn't his intended audience?

I agree the rating system probably doesn't work too great, and the min 4 rating to not get the little income they can get half sounds sad. Should likely be rated purely based on usage relative to how new it is, and income should be based on usage and not downloads . A mod everyone used should earn more than a mod everyone tested but deleted after 5 minutes.

[ShabaFS]

I don't normally play much, most of my time is spent creating my maps and the odd mod, but when I do, I always check out new mods and only download what catches my eye. At first glance, I mainly look at the quality of the details of the mod in the screenshots. After testing it, I only rate it 5 stars if that mod lives up to the expectations I created from the start; otherwise I will not rate it.

That's how I do it when I rate a mod. Completely or noting.

What has always caught my attention are the numbers that appear next to the ratings of the mods, those that appear in parentheses, on the official website, I can't relate them to anything.

Do you mean those numbers next to the stars in ModHub?
4.2 (539) -> 4.2 stars on average with 539 reviews submitted

I think that number in parentheses cannot indicate exactly the reviews sent to that mod, it will be a proportional part of the total or it will indicate something else

[LMoonlight]

I think that number in parentheses cannot indicate exactly the reviews sent to that mod, it will be a proportional part of the total or it will indicate something else

That is a very interesting aspect. If the sum shows only a cross-section of the total submitted ratings, then that would also explain why the modder himself, can not see an individual overview for the star rating.

[Ekan]

The higher quallity, and details, the higher I vote (100% functionality/bug free of course is a must). But alot of the votes are "support" voting. So a 4.8 dosent always meet my criterias.