I'm after some pro-tips.

Obviously I work really hard on my mods, and I try and check them thoroughly, I always check them for a few hours under multiple conditions, with my current modded-save, and a mod-free vanilla save. But Skyrim is a big game made by a team of professionals and Im only a single hobbyist, on top of that some people have hundreds of mods installed.

So what does one do with the random "this mod didn't work for me" complaints...

Do you guys:

• ignore them (unless the error makes logical sense)?
  
• Ask for more details, save games, installed mods?
  
• Throw them a generic "try it without any other mods enabled" line?

Ask for details, offer to help. Lots of people seem to expect that modders are going to ignore them, or that they aren't going to be taken seriously. Sometimes they may respond in a way that seems a little pissy but really is just frustration. I find if you offer to help and take them at their word, you can easily create a fan.

Cheers!

With my mods in Skyrim so far, I always know what the problem is, so I just tell then what to do to fix it. Sometimes they get indignant and all "that's not the problem I already did that whine whine." One even called me a sarcastic [censored].

Handle things like that calmly and professionally. Explain that, no, I'm not being sarcastic. I am actually telling you what the problem is. If you won't listen, then there's not much more I can do for you.

It doesn't do any good to entertain users' egos when you already know the problem. Sometimes you have to brute force the solution onto them.

Honestly, if it's something answered on my main page, I just ignore it. After going through my first two thousand comments or so I was just done.

If it's something that is answered on the main page, but the problem might not be so clearly defined so they may not know it, I'll just politely point them there.

If it's something really odd, I'll ask them to try without any mods and let me know what happens.

If it's saved game related, I let them know and tell them that I've done the best I can with it.

If it's them being dumb, I either ignore it, or I sit patiently and explain. Depends on my mood. I usually ignore it for a little while and hope another user explains for me - if not, I'll try and help.

And finally, if it's a genuine bug, or from a user that's been reliable, I'll check it out and do my best to fix it.

Otherwise, with the rest of comments, I tend to filter out those with poor grammar - unless it's from a non-english speaking reason. Don't really have the patience to sit and talk with someone who won't write comprehensibly.

I'm pretty harsh, in retrospect. I do tend to ignore a lot. I used to respond to a lot, but man, I got sick of it at some point. Think I decided that I'd rather just let the people unwilling to do any kind of troubleshooting themselves (I mean, if a mod has trouble, and there's a 'ModExclusions' ini option, isn't it an obvious thing to try? or really, all the people who ignore half of the instructions you post, but respond to the other half?) pass on the mod, and I'll share it with those willing to help me if the situation calls for it.

It depends on the issue and how they say it. If they simply say 'this doesn't work' or something completely not helpful like that, I usually ignore it. If they wont take the time to at least give some basic details, I wont take the time prying them out of the person.

If they report a horridly obvious thing that's a quick fix, I usually quickly answer them. If they post a big issue that seems complex, I ask them to elaborate and see if anyone else reports it. If nobody else does, I usually move on. However if I get a lot of reports then I look into it and fix the issue.

You have to pick and choose. You can't help everyone. It depends on the popularity of your mods, but some can get upwards of 50-100 posts a day on their Nexus/WS page. If the author answers all of those then they wont have any time to work on the mod.

Handle the major issues first, then if you have the time or patience, answer the smaller ones.

We have a lot of new players who have never modded a game before, for whom the whole process is confusing, mystifying, and can get annoying.

Using mods can often be complex, particularly to those who only have basic computer literacy - and we have an increasing number of ex-console players wanting more from their Skyrim.

Mod readmes in order to be detailed can be long and confusing - to an initiate they can be scary and offputting - and many people don't have the attention span to sit down and read. You could argue that they shouldn't be using mods, but the reality is they are - so we either ignore them, or try and simplify things as much as possible and in the process encourage them to learn, step by step. If they take the time to report bugs or ask me a question, I feel they are committed enough to work through their problems with me.

Remember, we all needed to start somewhere - I started by adding one or two mods to Morrowind (which I added with trepidation at the time). Many of these new players will be here one minute, gone the next - but quite a few of them will be willing to learn if given a helping hand - and some of these may well go on to become mod creators of the next generation.

[/hippy]

When they bark out something like "your mod causes CTDs in my game" and they spit out a mod list with 100 "must haves" that haven't been updated since the first CK.... I either ignore it or tell them they need to update their other mods. If I see mods in the list clearly older than the CK itself, I automatically tell them to get rid of them because the problems caused by that crap are piling up thousands of worthless bug reports for everyone.

What's worse is when you have to tell them that the bugware they've been clinging to since November has corrupted their save and you basically get the finger as a response, because obviously all their problems just magically appeared only when your mod showed up.

The people who report actual bugs get them taken care of and I tell them it's being fixed. You don't even need to know these people. You'll be able to tell what reports contain useful information even if it's not a detailed report. They won't be reporting a CTD in some area you never touched for one.

Bottom line though is there's thousands of people throwing stuff on the wall hoping it'll stick to someone. It's made dealing with Skyrim a serious mental drain.