Is the Collections feature going to have version compatibility management?

[solonlost]

I've been looking around but can't really find an answer to this.

 

My current experience with Vortex is that the various automated features are largely useless because there is no system to ensure the compatibility of the updated mod version with the installed game version.

 

I have not been able to discover whether there are any plans to include a system for this with collections.

 

I see roughly two ways of going about it.

 

Eirther you make a 'collection' only work for a specific installed game version,

 

or

 

You start tracking which mods are known to work with which game versions, either by the mod author specifying that it is the case, or possibly, and more invasively by gathering the info from Vortex.

 

In any event, I don't see how the feature will be of any use as long as there is no mechanism to ensure a mod version is compatible with a game version. My mods for most games break pretty much every time one of my games is updated, which as mentioned above, makes most of the automated 'look for new versions' features useless as you still have to verify the version you're going to download is going to work with your game version.

 

It seems to me that without this kind of functionality, collections are going to be just as useless as the other automated features currently are.

 

In any event, I'd be curious if such a feature is planned as an addition to what data is stored about a mod.

[Pickysaurus]

It's not really related to Collections, but I definitely agree that for some games the version is important. We are going to look at this as a larger piece of work to cover both mods and Collections.

 

Technically Vortex already has some of this built in. It can detect the game version, but currently requires the mods to have some kind of manifest file informing it of the supported versions.

 

A good example is our Blade & Sorcery support which warns users when they install a mod for an incompatible version.

 

I'm hoping that, eventually, we can build the game version requirement into file uploads on mod pages and, by proxy, collections.

[Guest deleted34304850]

that sounds like an incredibly useful feature. could it be used - as an example - if someone installed a skyrim le module into a skyrim se game? i know we already have a form of warning when that happens - but could it actively warn - or even prevent - accidentally installing a version of a mod if its not compatible with the current executable?

[Gruffydd]

Absent any automated system to identify things, shouldn't it be the collection curator's responsibility to determine what their collection is or is not compatible with, and notify users accordingly?

[frontaldnd]

Instead of putting extra steps for mod authors that might cause confusion it'd be easier imo to make this a collection based info, I'm guessing collections will also swap out ini files and all the settings necessary for it to work so I can't see why a collections author isn't required to specify what version of the game was tested with the collection and if multiple versions of the collection were tested store them (just like you store multiple past versions of mods) so a user can pick a version that fits them.

 

This would also remove the need to update older mods that aren't updated anymore with version data.

[Pickysaurus]

Instead of putting extra steps for mod authors that might cause confusion it'd be easier imo to make this a collection based info, I'm guessing collections will also swap out ini files and all the settings necessary for it to work so I can't see why a collections author isn't required to specify what version of the game was tested with the collection and if multiple versions of the collection were tested store them (just like you store multiple past versions of mods) so a user can pick a version that fits them.

 

This would also remove the need to update older mods that aren't updated anymore with version data.

 

I don't really see a good argument not to give this ability to mod authors and curators.

 

 

that sounds like an incredibly useful feature. could it be used - as an example - if someone installed a skyrim le module into a skyrim se game? i know we already have a form of warning when that happens - but could it actively warn - or even prevent - accidentally installing a version of a mod if its not compatible with the current executable?

 

I mean, if the versions don't match, sure. I'm pretty sure SE/LE EXE versions are quite different. Although for some reason SE's EXE currently reports it's v1.0.0 because Bethesda didn't put the version in the expected field. I have already requested they fix it in the next EXE update, so we'll see!

[solonlost]

My problem is largely with the fact that Vortex doesn't really have all that much use if this doesn't become a part of the nexus mods database. Whenever the auto-update feature is required, it's usually related to the game being updated. Games being updated frequently also have beta versions, meaning that there are at least two possible versions people could be running. When something changes in this (development related) environment, compatibility - in whatever direction - isn't neccessarily supported by the developer.

 

The result is, that it's almost certain that Vortex will download a version of a mod that doesn't work with the installed game version, or it downloads a new version of a mod when it shouldn't.

 

For me, in the present situation this generally (say 90%+ of cases) means:

 

Game Update + Vortex Auto Update = Broken install

 

And it's largely caused by the fact that nexus mods and therefore vortex, isn't game version compatibility aware.

 

Developers aren't going to fix this, as modders are a fringe group and not worth the development time of making sure everything is compatible in every direction.

 

It is also in fact intricately related to the Collections feature, because any kind of substantial collection is almost certain to lead to a broken install after a game update and is likely to be e very hit and miss (more miss) affair for games that have both a release and a beta version concurrently available.

 

I'm willing to make a prediction that if version awareness is not implemented before collections is implemented, it will be a largely dead feature since installing a collection will very often break your install, particularly in (early access) games that can have concurrent substantially different versions.

[Guest deleted34304850]

its really funny because ive been using vortex since beta - installed hundreds of mods - all of them different versions and never, not once, have i hit an issue where your prediction is in any way accurate.

i can't think why that is. perhaps i've just been lucky?

[Zanderat]

A collection is merely a curated list of mods. How is it any different than what happens today?

 

BTW, game version checking is a good idea.

[frontaldnd]

My problem is largely with the fact that Vortex doesn't really have all that much use if this doesn't become a part of the nexus mods database. Whenever the auto-update feature is required, it's usually related to the game being updated. Games being updated frequently also have beta versions, meaning that there are at least two possible versions people could be running. When something changes in this (development related) environment, compatibility - in whatever direction - isn't neccessarily supported by the developer.

 

The result is, that it's almost certain that Vortex will download a version of a mod that doesn't work with the installed game version, or it downloads a new version of a mod when it shouldn't.

 

For me, in the present situation this generally (say 90%+ of cases) means:

 

Game Update + Vortex Auto Update = Broken install

 

And it's largely caused by the fact that nexus mods and therefore vortex, isn't game version compatibility aware.

 

Developers aren't going to fix this, as modders are a fringe group and not worth the development time of making sure everything is compatible in every direction.

 

It is also in fact intricately related to the Collections feature, because any kind of substantial collection is almost certain to lead to a broken install after a game update and is likely to be e very hit and miss (more miss) affair for games that have both a release and a beta version concurrently available.

 

I'm willing to make a prediction that if version awareness is not implemented before collections is implemented, it will be a largely dead feature since installing a collection will very often break your install, particularly in (early access) games that can have concurrent substantially different versions.

You aren't supposed to use it like that tho. I'm pretty sure, unless I'm mistaken that the version data will be used for compatibility assurance and not for auto updating. It'll just dictate what versions of the game the modlist / mod has been tested/developed for, allowing you to more quickly pick it. This way if you're running version X.1 you pick the modlist for version X.1 . The modlist for version X.2 wich is a further update might work with your old game version but you pick it at your own risk because it wasn't tested/developed for that version of the game.