Draw distance sucks for a vast ocean of plants and sealife. Seriously, I have a really good video card, and this fucking Unity engine can’t draw 500 feet in front of me.
I remember one of the modders behind a UI overhaul talking about the response to paid mods, when users kept saying that a donation system was better, that in the entire time they’d been making the mod they’d only gotten like $50 in donations total.
Edit: And seeing modders use patreon now for support, and those mods still getting “pirated”, I don’t think the issue was ever about Bethesda or how they handled it.