Is it just me, or is the modding for GTA V kind of messy?

[ThunderMonkey]

For the record, not stating this as a n00b to modding, nor a noob to GTA V modding. Have been modding/editing games since the 80s... if a game is capable of it, I love typically nothing more than modding and customizing it. (Also for the record, I bought GTA V when it first originally released on PS3, and upgraded to the PC version perhaps a year ago or so.)

(Also, I'm fully aware of the past cluster-!@#! with OpenIV and how R* sent them a cease/desist which made tons uninstall GTAV as a boycott, and caused modders to freak out, and several never came back...)

That said, I've installed/re-installed GTA V probably a half-dozen times or so (play until I kind of get burnt out, uninstall, then re-install later), and just re-installed it again yesterday... each time re-modding it from scratch, so have plenty of experience in it.

Thing is, seems each time I re-install there's some new form of mod-base, and I understand having them, as the mods need to hook into the game. But this time around, wanted to do police-simulation... just to get LSPDFR to run, need ScriptHook, ScriptHookDotNet, and RageHook. Then turns out that LSPDFR comes packaged with an old RageHook that it won't allow you to unselect, so it's a mess of force-out-dating your RageHook that you then have to turn around and re-update.

Further, this was my first time using RageHook, and originally had some errors in the log that didn't seem to make much sense. So I did some digging, and turns out there's bits and pieces of it that are CENTRAL to the RageHook, that have a separate stand-alone library-file that is out-of-date... which is mind-blowing, because it's mainly the executable and the library-file. So ultimately, LSPDFR forces you to get a REALLY out-dated RageHook, to then get the newer one, to find out that LSPDFR is trying to call for library-entries that aren't in the latest download of RageHook, to where you then have to go out and find the latest library-file for Ragehook (so ultimately, need A, which massively downgrades B, to where you then have to update to the newest B in order to even get A to work, but then find out you need to do the leg-work to find the latest C to get B to stop having errors/issues, because A which force-downgrades B is calling for items in C that aren't in B -- and even though A is calling for the latest and greatest bits of C, it can't be bothered to either remove B from its installer or at least upgrade it to have a more modern version of B or at least give you the option to skip B while installing A)... and all this so far, is JUST to get LSPDFR to run without any extra LSPDFR-specific mods, any other mods, any other scripts, etc. (Not to mention RageHook was crashing during the start/load screen, but thankfully a simple/minor tweak/modification fixed it... along with allowing mods/scripts that would also normally cause crashes to work as well, yay.) Some of the addons are directly for once LSPDFR launches (going on-duty), and some are for use all the time, which requires directory-structure touchiness around which addons go in the Plugins folder, and which go in the Plugins/LSPDFR folder.

Then, after that was running, got about 15-25 or so LSPDFR-specific addons, like callouts, traffic-stops, radio-calls, etc, etc... went mostly smooth, but did need some under-the-hood tinkering here and there, and some testing of loading addons and updating bits for them... still not much luck in getting Siren Mastery running, but will eventually figure it out.

So after getting all that set, wanted a couple custom cars, which required using OpenIV, along with re-setting up the "mods" directory, which I've done before, but hadn't done for awhile, and there's next to no decent guides out there... sure OpenIV will set up the main mods folder, and you can pull the update file out of the main GTA5 files to put in it... then have to dig to update the dlclist file.

Then wanted to do more random-weather... which was a .xml file, which again required tinkering around in OpenIV, wasn't too complex, just backup the old old, insert the new one. Also installed some scripts in the scripts folder for simple-trainer and such.

And that's mainly it... but overall, a couple or a few custom vehicles, LSPDFR and about 15-25 addons for it, random-weather... and that's mainly it, and needing to stack together the front-load for ScriptHookV, ScriptHookDotNet, RageHook, ASI Loader, Mods directory (and the proper-directory structure with modifying the dlclist), Scripts, Plugins (and the proper-directory structure), and that's after a decent amount of text-editing, OpenIV tinkering, a few times trouble-shooting and testing when things would go sideways, and then on-top of it setting up ReShade to run with all of it... but again, one main mod and some addons, and a small handful of other stuff, and it's just SO cumbersome and practically a cluster-!@#!. And that's just basic bits... if I wanted to get into adding even more cars, or custom safe-houses, or newer/custom player-models, or other functionality, it's going to be even that much more a mess of modding... where at any given time one mod could topple the entire house-of-cards, and even though typically removing the mod in question will fix the issue, sometimes it alters other bits that cause you to have to really trace back to the beginning and iron even more stuff out. (Not to mention the occasional having to tinker around under the hood of RageHook ticking options on and off in a manner that makes me almost feel like I'm trying to solve a magical/mysterious unknown chemical-formula with check-boxes, rofl.)

Don't get me wrong, I love the capability of what's possible in the GTA 5 engine... saw a mod on GTA5mods the other day that allowed space travel to other planets it looked like, but damn, would think being one of the biggest modded games on the market, it might have a more fluent modding-system in place. Even though there are few games that can be modded and customized as much, even the ones that can, the modding is typically SO much easier... just drop a mod file where it needs to go, and the engine loads it and knows how to handle it, and pretty much end of story.

Like I said, I'm a die-hard modder, and mod most anything and everything... but GTA 5 actually hits a threshold where there was a few times I wanted to tap out and say, "this is just too much hassle". For a game that's been out for four years, would think there'd be a more solid system in place, or perhaps some of the authors would have teamed up and/or gotten permission to combine bits into one giant front-loader to include ScriptHook, ScriptHookDotNet, and Rage Hook all into one large hook... especially since most things require at least the first two. And then an all-around editor that could handle opening files like in OpenIV (which yeah, I realize you can do some very moderate text/script-editing in OpenIV, and perhaps it's just me, but it seems clunky, not to mention, OpenIV for some reason causes my video to flicker every now and again... only thing that does it, no idea why) while being able to load/modify scripts, edit plugins, etc (even the older GTAs, which I get were more simpler engines, had multi/all-in-one editor-tools for them typically).

I dunno, perhaps it's just me... wanted to rant and get this off my chest... agree or disagree, some may agree, some may disagree... but yeah, it's a mess down here in the bowels of modding for GTA V, rofl. :P

PS - For the moment, have everything running perfectly and like a charm (minus Siren Mastery again, which I will get working eventually)... but because how everything is duct-taped together, the modding feels like I'm playing Russian-Roulette and the very next mod could be the bullet that puts the entire thing out to pasture.