Future Mod Support in Frostbite?

As I understand it, Frostbite isn't all that friendly to mods.

It isn't. But IIRC, the biggest issue behind there not being a toolset is that they don't own all the tools they use to make their games, and it would be prohibitively expensive to license them for widespread use.

No, for sure they dont own all the tools they use as one can see in many games, different libraries and so on, are licensed.

For the frostbite itself, I think they DO have all the tools

Don't know myself whether or not it is true (though I too believe Hrungr) - but if it is true, a likely explanation is DICE is it's own legal entity.  It may be wholly owned by EA (as is Bioware) but they still have their own legal assets and IP.  Bioware gets to use Frostbite for their own use (developing games) and create tools of their own within it, but distributing the whole package (or even "enough" of the package to make it work for community modders) would require some kind of approval from EA and DICE.  Back when I worked for "Big Business" we used a software program designed and maintained by another company that was owned by our parent company.

The manager of our branch was always moaning about the licensing cost of the software.  

Agree with above to a point.

Certainly, artists use Photoshop and 3dsMAX or Maya or whatever to develop models and animations. I am sure they make FB3 specific plugins for those programs - why not share them? They aren't sharing MAX/Maya, they are sharing a plugin. The KotOR community had to make their own, based off of an NWN compiler that mostly worked (BioWare had dropped official mod support/LucasArts demands).

FB3 certainly has a scripting language. I haven't tried to mod one of the FB games, so I don't know, but from what I gather it appears to be C/C++ based as is most game scription. They could share a compiler, and provide some source code. Better, a text editor with a function list and parameter breakdown with ability to compile.

I get the proprietary aspect - wholly owned subsidiaries or not, there is some indepence between the EA branches. I don't see why EA can't wave their magic wand in this case/ use a Dark Jedi wave and compel DICE and BioWare to make modding possible.

Now, if there are actually 3rd party tools used by FB3 developers (with the exception of art assets as mentioned) I don't know what it is. That is my curiosity.

The problem is the tools that exist for Frostbite are depends on all the plug-ins you see in the game that they license and you see the licenses in the credits for splash screens at the launch of the game.  So they would have to go back and create tools that they can give away to players for free that don't require those pieces of software that the game is dependent on.  The other problem and I think this was said during the era of Inquisition is that the Frostbite tools they use are also designed to work in a Client/Server architecture so they would have to go through the cost of developing and maintaining a toolset that works completely different then the tools they are using to develop the game. 

Its why I think people are hearing "user generated content" and assuming "mods" when it might not be that case at all.  If you read the entire article where the user generated content was also mentioned they were talking about streaming games and using an app on a Smart TV to play a game versus downloading it at all.  The context of the article combine with how I have heard Frostbite works makes me think "user generated content" might be more like Doom's implementation of Snapmap instead of a toolset like Bethesda gives out.

I love mods. It was so easy to do in Unreal 3. Frostbite tools, especially given that they're not even compatible between MEA and DAI, are not my favorite.

Not to poop on anyone's parade, but "user generated content" does not necessarily mean "mods".

In Warframe, for example, it means "user generated cosmetic items", i.e. skins and models for Warframes, helmets and syandanas (cloaks). These are submitted to Digital Extremes, and every few weeks or months one of their patches will contain another round of "TennoGen".

You're on old, old information. You've been able to use Frosty mod manager and editor for DAI for months now. I've updated several of my mods to work with it. While Frosty originally started out for MEA, it can now support many more Frostbite games.

At the moment, the mod manager requires separate instances for each game. The editor is a one-for-all type deal.