Is Vortex truly ready to replace NMM?

[nexodexo]

I came here to ask a question about NMM, but, to my surprise, it's no longer supported and has been replaced by the new Vortex (I must have been out of the loop here). Since a major NMM upgrade absolutely destroyed my mod installation once, I decided to look into Vortex before switching to it and there are so many complaints about it that I don't even have the time to read through all the threads. Considering that there haven't been any major NMM complaints as of late, it would suggest that all of these new complaints about Vortex shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Is Vortex truly ready to replace NMM? It takes way too long to fix broken mod installations and I don't want to take any chances. If I don't like Vortex, can I go back to NMM? How long do we have before NMM no longer works at all, leaving us no choice but to switch to Vortex?

[HadToRegister]

You can still download NMM 0.65.2 from the INSTALL VORTEX button/link, you can also download the newest NMM 0.65.10 from github.

Provided you take your time to learn Vortex, you'll be happy with it, my current setup with Vortex is

 

Fallout 3 - 115 mods

Fallout: New Vegas - 127 mods

Fallout 4 - 252 mods

Skyrim SE - 174 mods

[Guest deleted34304850]

you can't have been paying much attention, NMM has been deprecated for two years and more. you can still download it and use it with very little change however.

 

to answer your question is vortex truly ready to replace nmm? in my experience, given i have now migrated ALL my games to Vortex with no issues at all in any migration, the answer is yes, vortex is ready to replace nmm and has fully replaced NMM for me. I will bet dollars to donuts that I am not the only person out there who will come to this conclusion. The application has been tested and tested and tested by some more by thousands of users running different configurations and it is absolutely solid. plus, updates fixing bugs are pushed out at very regular intervals.

all this, at zero cost other than a bit of patience and the ability to read and follow instruction. you cannot beat it.

[chanchan05]

Vortex>NMM hands down.

 

The only ones who refuse that are those who didn't bother to read instructions before diving into Vortex and expected it would work the same way when the site documentation clearly stated it doesn't and even has a phrase saying that if you're fine with how your mod manager is working you could consider now switching over at all.

 

It took me all of a couple hours to watch through the instruction videos (which is kind of pointless to watch everything because it was intended for modding beginners so there was a lot of stuff I already knew) and explore the program before I was modding my way to a 500mod Skyrim build that was more stable than anything I've ever managed with 300mods on NMM.

 

My only advice is DO NOT IMPORT from NMM. Start from scratch. You can import mod archives so you won't have to redownload, but DO NOT IMPORT AN EXISTING MOD BUILD. Most of the problems you see here come from that. In fact, a number here would agree with me that it's best to reinstall from scratch because Vortex works fundamentally different from NMM.

[AugustaCalidia]

I came here to ask a question about NMM, but, to my surprise, it's no longer supported and has been replaced by the new Vortex (I must have been out of the loop here). Since a major NMM upgrade absolutely destroyed my mod installation once, I decided to look into Vortex before switching to it and there are so many complaints about it that I don't even have the time to read through all the threads. Considering that there haven't been any major NMM complaints as of late, it would suggest that all of these new complaints about Vortex shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Is Vortex truly ready to replace NMM? It takes way too long to fix broken mod installations and I don't want to take any chances. If I don't like Vortex, can I go back to NMM? How long do we have before NMM no longer works at all, leaving us no choice but to switch to Vortex?

 

Vortex is the finest mod manager that I have ever used. Over the past several years, I have used a half-dozen managers, and they have all served me well. Vortex, however, has two features that. for me, make it stand out from the crowd, viz., load order management and file conflict resolution. Vortex is now my mod manager of choice for any serious gaming.

 

If you do want to take the Vortex plunge, please follow the advice of Chanchan05 in the post preceding mine. That will save you a lot of grief.

 

As for Vortex complaints, change always begets complaints. I still remember the almost endless cacophony of complaining howls that occurred when v. 0.60.x of Nexus Mod Manager was released. Eventually, however, people learned how to deal with an updated NMM, and life went on. It will be no different with Vortex.

[Ataxia]

Unfortunately, you are asking a question in a place that will always be biased one way or the other.

 

Asking is Vortex ready on the vortex forums probably isn't the right place if you want a truly neutral opinion answer.

 

But since your asking IMO, no it isn't ready. Although it is very powerful in its options, I don't believe that it is simple enough for your average person to use or to move to.

From my very limited use, and from what I have read, it has a fair way to go. Adding a load of tutorial videos isn't the answer. If you need to add a video showing how to do something, then it is too complicated for the average person.

 

Edit:- Forgot to mention the sheer number of bugs atm, but they will get sorted with time.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Ataxia

[Grestorn]

There aren't that many bugs. And even though there's certainly room for improvement here and there, the fact that people have to understand certain techincal implications and will fail if they're can't be bothered with them, is not going away.

 

The problem with NMM always was, that it has the same issue actually. It just offers a very crude way to deal with them, like with the install order ("Overwrite All", "Overwrite Mod" or "Overwrite File"....) which was so inflexible that it actually made people think it's simple while it really isn't. They were just not aware of the implication of their decision and just always selected "Overwrite all"....

 

the handling of the load order is similar... looks easy at first but actually leaves it up to the user to get it right who just has no idea of the implications.

 

Alone the fact that NMM keeps write-locking the plugin.txt file which in turn makes it impossible for LOOT to sort the plugins without my manual intervention... I wonder why nobody is talking about nonsense like this.

[nexodexo]

Thanks for the responses. Based on my reading -- even from the positive posts -- I am still leery about switching. As a .NET engineer myself (and I believe at least NMM is in .NET), designing your software so that it is intuitive is of the highest priority. imo, an application that manages video game mods should not be of a complexity that it requires video tutorials, but rather the software itself should guide the user with a well-designed UI.

 

You also shouldn't have to walk on eggshells to avoid breaking anything when using the native features of the software (eg, importing existing mod build from NMM). If the native import feature can potentially break a mod build then the application is NOT ready for production. Everything should be as easy as point and click. End of story.

 

Lastly, an application being "new" is not a justification for the frustration to the degree that I have seen so far. If it is intuitively-designed, that it is new and improved should not matter so long the flow makes sense to the end user.

 

So, my question is this: If I install Vortex and I want to switchback to NMM, will I be able to do so without the risk of having to reinstall my mods?

[Dark0ne]

We think it is, else we wouldn't have switched it over on the site.

 

As far as we (the creators of it) are concerned, NMM is broken beyond repair, and people should move off it as soon as they have the time to do so. A lot of the issues we're seeing with users importing from NMM to Vortex have been caused by the fact NMM has not been managing their files properly. Corrupt files, mod installations/uninstallations that failed to install properly and/or clean up after itself, NMM not logging changes properly thus the file log is incomplete and no longer managing everything it should be -- it's a mess. A lot of the users are blissfully ignorant of this, either because they're not touching their mod installations any more or because it hasn't become a glaring issue in the new mods they've installed -- yet (or they've just grown accustomed to random and unexplainable bugs/crashes in their games!). Thus they continue to think that NMM is fully working. It's not.

 

We would not recommend it to any new users at all.

[nexodexo]

Thanks, Dark0ne. An answer from someone with direct ties to the development is exactly what's needed here. You've provided insight into the fact that it's not the Vortex that has the issues, but NMM which is so broken that Vortex is incapable of reliably converting the NMM mod build architecture to the new model.

 

So this raises my confidence in Vortex. I have frequent crashes using NMM, so maybe Vortex will help clear it up. Will report back here with my overall experience.