Feature Request: Manual Load Order Sort.

[sirlach]

Hi Team,

 

Firstly I just wanted to reiterate that I think Vortex is awesome and a great mod management tool. I have a bundle of different profiles which help me with playing games and making mods.

 

Apologies if this has been asked for elsewhere.

 

One thing I have been trying to do is setup a mod list that relies on and requires manual load order sorting. - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23556 - to ensure stability.

 

I tried to do it using Vortex but required too many rules and in the end I gave up and went back to NMM on a separate PC for that particular build.

 

All It would take would be if on top of the autosort disable feature we could manually reposition plugins in the load order. Maybe set it up as an advanced feature.

 

It also seems that in the community this is the only remaining criticism of Vortex and a few significant mod authors are recommending against it for lack of manual sorting as an option.

 

I would also happily contribute funds to make this feature possible.

 

Keep up the great work and looking forward to the future.

 

 

[AugustaCalidia]

@sirlach

 

Your request for manual sorting has often been made in this forum. In fact there's a thread on load order management pros and cons that was started over a year ago and continues to this day.

 

 

I tried to do it using Vortex but required too many rules and in the end I gave up and went back to NMM on a separate PC for that particular build.

 

NMM is the right place to go if you think you need to follow a guide for load order management. In my own experience, Vortex obviates the need for this kind of micromanagement and allows me to deal with plugin load order in minutes.

 

 

All It would take would be if on top of the autosort disable feature we could manually reposition plugins in the load order. Maybe set it up as an advanced feature.

 

Vortex does allow you to reposition plugins manually. In my own case, however, I've rarely ever had to use that feature.

 

 

It also seems that in the community this is the only remaining criticism of Vortex and a few significant mod authors are recommending against it for lack of manual sorting as an option.

 

In these Vortex forums that criticism most often comes from people who either don't understand how Vortex works and what its capabilities are, or from people who find some kind of security in manually manipulating load orders. As for the one mod author I know of who has warned against Vortex and its sorting capabilities, I've had no trouble whatever integrating his mod into my load order using Vortex sorting.

[sopmac45]

Hi Team,

 

Firstly I just wanted to reiterate that I think Vortex is awesome and a great mod management tool. I have a bundle of different profiles which help me with playing games and making mods.

 

Apologies if this has been asked for elsewhere.

 

One thing I have been trying to do is setup a mod list that relies on and requires manual load order sorting. - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23556 - to ensure stability.

 

I tried to do it using Vortex but required too many rules and in the end I gave up and went back to NMM on a separate PC for that particular build.

 

All It would take would be if on top of the autosort disable feature we could manually reposition plugins in the load order. Maybe set it up as an advanced feature.

 

It also seems that in the community this is the only remaining criticism of Vortex and a few significant mod authors are recommending against it for lack of manual sorting as an option.

 

I would also happily contribute funds to make this feature possible.

 

Keep up the great work and looking forward to the future.

 

 

 

 

I tried to do manual sorting when Vortex came out more than a 1 year ago and instead fixing things, I created my own mess.

 

For me to overcome that, I had to completely eliminate from my brain the idea I had, based my usage of NMM. And as Augusta Calida said, one year ago everybody, rookies like me and very experienced users as well, tried to convince Tannin ( the creator of Vortex and MO2 ) to introduce the manual sorting dragging / dropping style as NMM has and he on the contrary convinced us that the way Vortex does it, is simpler, easier, reliable and much superior than NMM.

 

Still, Vortex allow you to do that but honestly, you do not need to. After I gave Vortex a shot and started to understand it and more importantly, to embrace it, trust it and allow it to do perform on its automated auto-sort function to sort the plugins, I have never had the need to manually drag / drop any plugin at all and I have been successfully using it since then.

 

Also, there are people suggesting not to use Vortex. Do yourself a favor, give yourself a chance to learn it, try it, follow the procedures or if you want to, I have written procedures about how to set up Vortex if you want to use them and come back and let us know. Believe only in what you have achieved and do not let anybody to manipulate you to go against it. That person who has been suggesting not to use Vortex, has his own goals and still, his mod can be added to Vortex and make it work as it was intended, just to let you know.

[HadToRegister]

Hi Team,

 

Firstly I just wanted to reiterate that I think Vortex is awesome and a great mod management tool. I have a bundle of different profiles which help me with playing games and making mods.

 

Apologies if this has been asked for elsewhere.

 

One thing I have been trying to do is setup a mod list that relies on and requires manual load order sorting. - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23556 - to ensure stability.

 

I tried to do it using Vortex but required too many rules and in the end I gave up and went back to NMM on a separate PC for that particular build.

 

All It would take would be if on top of the autosort disable feature we could manually reposition plugins in the load order. Maybe set it up as an advanced feature.

 

It also seems that in the community this is the only remaining criticism of Vortex and a few significant mod authors are recommending against it for lack of manual sorting as an option.

 

I would also happily contribute funds to make this feature possible.

 

Keep up the great work and looking forward to the future.

 

 

 

 

If you take the time to learn Vortex, you'll quickly realize that there's absolutely no need to manually sort anymore.

 

Take it from me, I'm the guy who kept starting and participating in the majority of "VORTEX NEEDS MANUAL SORTING" threads.

 

 

Once I learned to drop the old ingrained habits of micromanaging my plugin order because of NMM, Vortex became a breeze to use, and allowed me to set up a working and crash-free modded game in a quarter of the time it used to take me with NMM.

[Guest deleted34304850]

Hi Team,

 

Firstly I just wanted to reiterate that I think Vortex is awesome and a great mod management tool. I have a bundle of different profiles which help me with playing games and making mods.

 

Apologies if this has been asked for elsewhere.

 

One thing I have been trying to do is setup a mod list that relies on and requires manual load order sorting. - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23556 - to ensure stability.

 

I tried to do it using Vortex but required too many rules and in the end I gave up and went back to NMM on a separate PC for that particular build.

 

All It would take would be if on top of the autosort disable feature we could manually reposition plugins in the load order. Maybe set it up as an advanced feature.

 

It also seems that in the community this is the only remaining criticism of Vortex and a few significant mod authors are recommending against it for lack of manual sorting as an option.

 

I would also happily contribute funds to make this feature possible.

 

Keep up the great work and looking forward to the future.

 

 

i used that modlist in my last nmm-controlled playthrough. i love britaibec and he is a great supporter of his modlist.

when i transitioned to vortex, i went down the "i'm going to make that in vortex" route, and i spent hours creating rules and putting mods in groups. by the time i was done, i had it working 100%.

a while later, i bought a new machine and i thought - im not going through that again, so i took the same mods, and simply let vortex control them. you know what happened? i got a stable game in about a tenth of the time.

there is literally no requirement for you to manually order anything, unless there is a clear conflict and then you do what you need, such as put the fix after the main mod, or whatever.

basically - trust vortex to manage your mods for you so that you spend your time playing the game not playing vortex.

[Pokota]

Reading these forums, the basic vibe I get is, "you're wrong to want manual sorting because Vortex will work perfectly without it." Okay, but what if it seems otherwise?

 

I just switched over to Vortex. It was a nightmare that took about four days but, honestly, that's probably because of NMM, which I finally had to end up deleting because I had older versions of mods running at the same time as newer versions (still getting that with LooksMenu, actually). Advanced Animation Framework broke during that so I have it and everything it depends on disabled for now.

 

With NMM, I had a Spring Cleaning compatibility patch that I just dragged toward the end of the load order and it worked as I wanted. Easy as pie. Now Vortex has it up high in the load order and my settlements are filled with trash that I can't get rid of. If this were NMM, I could just drag it down and be done with it. With Vortex, however, I need to ... what? Hunt through 200 plugins and find the exact plugin I need it to "load after"? That seems tedious and unnecessary. Tie it to a random plugin near the end of the order? That seems inelegant and possibly troublesome if I ever need to modify THAT particular plugin.

 

What am I missing? What, in this situation, makes the way Vortex handles things better? This is an honest question, it's why I'm here, in case I missed something while skimming over the "managing your load order" page. And, yes, I admit that I really don't want to read all that about nodes and groups when I just want to solve this quickly and play the game when it was unnecessary before. I'll probably get into that when I go about re-enabling Advanced Animation Framework, which requires a LOT of trial and error and experimentation in terms of load order, so I'm kind of dreading that, too.

[HadToRegister]

Reading these forums, the basic vibe I get is, "you're wrong to want manual sorting because Vortex will work perfectly without it." Okay, but what if it seems otherwise?

 

I just switched over to Vortex. It was a nightmare that took about four days but, honestly, that's probably because of NMM, which I finally had to end up deleting because I had older versions of mods running at the same time as newer versions (still getting that with LooksMenu, actually). Advanced Animation Framework broke during that so I have it and everything it depends on disabled for now.

 

With NMM, I had a Spring Cleaning compatibility patch that I just dragged toward the end of the load order and it worked as I wanted. Easy as pie. Now Vortex has it up high in the load order and my settlements are filled with trash that I can't get rid of. If this were NMM, I could just drag it down and be done with it. With Vortex, however, I need to ... what? Hunt through 200 plugins and find the exact plugin I need it to "load after"? That seems tedious and unnecessary. Tie it to a random plugin near the end of the order? That seems inelegant and possibly troublesome if I ever need to modify THAT particular plugin.

 

What am I missing? What, in this situation, makes the way Vortex handles things better? This is an honest question, it's why I'm here, in case I missed something while skimming over the "managing your load order" page. And, yes, I admit that I really don't want to read all that about nodes and groups when I just want to solve this quickly and play the game when it was unnecessary before. I'll probably get into that when I go about re-enabling Advanced Animation Framework, which requires a LOT of trial and error and experimentation in terms of load order, so I'm kind of dreading that, too.

 

 

 

With NMM, I had a Spring Cleaning compatibility patch that I just dragged toward the end of the load order and it worked as I wanted. Easy as pie. Now Vortex has it up high in the load order and my settlements are filled with trash that I can't get rid of. If this were NMM, I could just drag it down and be done with it. With Vortex, however, I need to ... what?

 

The first thing you are missing, is reading any of the Knowledge Base about Managing Load orders, the entry titled "Managing Your Load Order" would've told you EXACTLY what to do.

All you had to do was add the spring cleaning patch to the group "DYNAMIC PATCHES" and it would've gone straight to the bottom of your load order

This is covered quite well in the Knowledge Base in the "Managing Your Load Order" topic.

 

However, you shouldn't even be using it, because it's quite old and does it's "thing" in a weird way.

You'd be better off with Scrap Everything.

 

 

which I finally had to end up deleting because I had older versions of mods running at the same time as newer versions

 

OK, not sure here if you were using NMM AND Vortex on the same game, but I can see why you ran into problem if that's the case, or, the other scenario is, you're getting multiple versions of mods installed, you must've tried to install a newer version of a mod and keep picking "Install Variant" rather than "Replace"

What that option does is install another variation of the mod so you'll keep getting the same mod installed over and over,

 

 

 

I'll probably get into that when I go about re-enabling Advanced Animation Framework, which requires a LOT of trial and error and experimentation in terms of load order, so I'm kind of dreading that, too.

 

Only if you INSIST on micromanaging your load order instead of letting Vortex do it.

 

 

 

With Vortex, however, I need to ... what? Hunt through 200 plugins and find the exact plugin I need it to "load after"? That seems tedious and unnecessary. Tie it to a random plugin near the end of the order? That seems inelegant and possibly troublesome if I ever need to modify THAT particular plugin.

 

No, as there's a handy popup window you can open if you press the "MANAGE RULES" menu button, it will open a MANAGE RULES window where you can type the name of the plugins you want to manage a conflict with and easily set from there.

 

As with any program, if you read the manual and learn how to use it, it will work for you, if you insist on forcing Vortex to be NMM, then you're only going to get frustrated

Stop using NMM thinking, and learn to think differently when using Vortex.

Once you get past the learning curve, it's must faster and easier to use than NMM, because there's none of that "putting your load order in a certain order" that takes hours.

That is why you're "Dreading" reinstalling the Animation Framework, because you're still thinking how difficult it is in NMM

 

[Guest deleted34304850]

hi, i read your reply and i have to say, honestly, i've never had the issues you're reporting. not once, not ever.

it reads to me like you may have stopped using nmm and used vortex right away. there's a process you need to do if you're going to do that, which would be to remove all the installed mods in nmm. I'd also recommend you delete the data folder and then allow steam to verify your local game files and download and install any missing files.

once you've done that, you've got a clean base to go from and you can then import one or many mods from your folder where nmm stored them, into vortex.

did you do any of that?

 

by the way, if you want to put a mod at the bottom of your load order, just assign it to a group that loads after default. takes about 5 seconds. this is the same process as you would do with LOOT, so honestly, nothings changed.

if vortex is loading it in the wrong place then you need to report that to the mod author who in turn needs to tell the loot developers - if mod authors don't tell the people behind loot then loot will never know that a mod needs to go lower in the load order, so do the mod author a solid and let them know to tell the people behind loot.

Edited April 22, 2019 by 1ae0bfb8

[sirlach]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

I understand the benefits of the "Vortex Way" and I subscribe to it and try and convert the uninitiated myself at times. :)

 

I just feel that by adding 1 feature and putting as an "for advanced users - please be aware of what you are doing" - type of thing that you would

 

a) Provide a way for people that have learnt how to manage mods manually continue to do it and then let them learn the benefits of Vortex in their own time rather than rejecting it outright.

 

b) Cancel out the only remaining criticism/barrier to total adoption of Vortex as the best modern mod manager.

[Pokota]

 

Reading these forums, the basic vibe I get is, "you're wrong to want manual sorting because Vortex will work perfectly without it." Okay, but what if it seems otherwise?

 

I just switched over to Vortex. It was a nightmare that took about four days but, honestly, that's probably because of NMM, which I finally had to end up deleting because I had older versions of mods running at the same time as newer versions (still getting that with LooksMenu, actually). Advanced Animation Framework broke during that so I have it and everything it depends on disabled for now.

 

With NMM, I had a Spring Cleaning compatibility patch that I just dragged toward the end of the load order and it worked as I wanted. Easy as pie. Now Vortex has it up high in the load order and my settlements are filled with trash that I can't get rid of. If this were NMM, I could just drag it down and be done with it. With Vortex, however, I need to ... what? Hunt through 200 plugins and find the exact plugin I need it to "load after"? That seems tedious and unnecessary. Tie it to a random plugin near the end of the order? That seems inelegant and possibly troublesome if I ever need to modify THAT particular plugin.

 

What am I missing? What, in this situation, makes the way Vortex handles things better? This is an honest question, it's why I'm here, in case I missed something while skimming over the "managing your load order" page. And, yes, I admit that I really don't want to read all that about nodes and groups when I just want to solve this quickly and play the game when it was unnecessary before. I'll probably get into that when I go about re-enabling Advanced Animation Framework, which requires a LOT of trial and error and experimentation in terms of load order, so I'm kind of dreading that, too.

 

 

 

With NMM, I had a Spring Cleaning compatibility patch that I just dragged toward the end of the load order and it worked as I wanted. Easy as pie. Now Vortex has it up high in the load order and my settlements are filled with trash that I can't get rid of. If this were NMM, I could just drag it down and be done with it. With Vortex, however, I need to ... what?

 

The first thing you are missing, is reading any of the Knowledge Base about Managing Load orders, the entry titled "Managing Your Load Order" would've told you EXACTLY what to do.

All you had to do was add the spring cleaning patch to the group "DYNAMIC PATCHES" and it would've gone straight to the bottom of your load order

This is covered quite well in the Knowledge Base in the "Managing Your Load Order" topic.

 

However, you shouldn't even be using it, because it's quite old and does it's "thing" in a weird way.

You'd be better off with Scrap Everything.

 

 

which I finally had to end up deleting because I had older versions of mods running at the same time as newer versions

 

OK, not sure here if you were using NMM AND Vortex on the same game, but I can see why you ran into problem if that's the case, or, the other scenario is, you're getting multiple versions of mods installed, you must've tried to install a newer version of a mod and keep picking "Install Variant" rather than "Replace"

What that option does is install another variation of the mod so you'll keep getting the same mod installed over and over,

 

 

 

I'll probably get into that when I go about re-enabling Advanced Animation Framework, which requires a LOT of trial and error and experimentation in terms of load order, so I'm kind of dreading that, too.

 

Only if you INSIST on micromanaging your load order instead of letting Vortex do it.

 

 

 

With Vortex, however, I need to ... what? Hunt through 200 plugins and find the exact plugin I need it to "load after"? That seems tedious and unnecessary. Tie it to a random plugin near the end of the order? That seems inelegant and possibly troublesome if I ever need to modify THAT particular plugin.

 

No, as there's a handy popup window you can open if you press the "MANAGE RULES" menu button, it will open a MANAGE RULES window where you can type the name of the plugins you want to manage a conflict with and easily set from there.

 

As with any program, if you read the manual and learn how to use it, it will work for you, if you insist on forcing Vortex to be NMM, then you're only going to get frustrated

Stop using NMM thinking, and learn to think differently when using Vortex.

Once you get past the learning curve, it's must faster and easier to use than NMM, because there's none of that "putting your load order in a certain order" that takes hours.

That is why you're "Dreading" reinstalling the Animation Framework, because you're still thinking how difficult it is in NMM

 

 

I didn't see anything about dynamic patches on the page I was looking. https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Managing_your_Load_Order

 

And, no, I use "replace". F4SE says I have an old version of LooksMenu when the only version I see in Vortex is the new one.

 

I mean, you're saying that I can just let Vortex run and it will be perfect when I'm saying that it's not. That's not up for debate because I can look in my game and see that it's not perfect. Then you're saying that I need to read a knowledge base instead of doing something easy and intuitive. Okay. As I said, I skimmed the whole Groups thing because I was hoping for an easy solution for an incredibly simple problem. Dragging a plugin to the bottom of a load order isn't what I would call micromanaging, either, not by a long shot.

 

Fine, though. I will put off playing until I have time to read the knowledge base and learn all about groups and nodes and singularities and such. Perhaps you're right, after the initial annoyance, it will be easier. However, you can't argue with me about finding this to be a lot more of a pain than learning NMM, as I'm the only one who can answer for myself. If the payoff is worth it or not is yet to be determined.

 

As far as the last line, what do you mean? Why was Advanced Animation Framework difficult in NMM? I don't recall having a problem.