Suggestion: Inter-mod compatibility portal

[xypista]

One of my biggest gripe with modding comes from inter-mod compatibility issues. As you install more and more mods the chance that you will have two or more that doesn't play nicely together increases.

Many times there are compatibility patches for these scenarios. Those compatibility patches might come from one of the original mod authors or from someone else. Sometimes they are separate mods on the site, sometimes they just listed as a downloadable file under one of the original mods. There are even big compatibility patch compendium mods that fix issues between multiple mods.

However, sometimes these compatibility patches become obsolete, or just simply bad designs.

Keeping track of all of this while installing or updating mods is a real chore.

 

What I propose is a place where users and mod authors can indicate inter-mod compatibility issues, discuss them, make them known so someone with free time and skills might create a patch for them, and a clear way to mark patches obsolete or mention problems. On this portal everyone should be able to comment, but make the original mod authors comments stand out. Also, probably the portal shouldn't be just for compatibility issues, but acknowledging mods that play nicely together.

 

For simplicity, I think the portal should work for compat issues between any two mods. There could be more complex compatibility issues, but the majority of them can be summarized between just two distinct mods.

 

I haven't really thought this out 100%. There are some issues with this, but I suggest something like what is below.

 

So, on this portal, anyone could look up two distinct mods and then

• Mark their experience with them compatibility wise (no / minor / major issues found). Have a forum for discussion on general compatibility between them.
• Make special entries for specific compatibility problems between the two mods. These entries should have separate forums for discussion. Also, maybe these entries could have a wiki-like main page. Allowing anyone to make changes there.
• Associate compatibility patch mods to these specific entries.
• Allow the original mod authors to add their comment to the entry in a special way. Like have their own section on the wiki-like page that only themselves can edit.

Any interaction (comments) on the portal done by the original mod authors should be listable.

 

Then on the normal mod pages, have a section that lists all other known mods that are known to have compatibility problems (already downloaded mods should be on the top of the list).

Also, we could have a section in the vortex mod manager that lists all known problems between the installed mods.

 

I fully acknowledge that not everything I suggested might be the best way to deal with the problem.

For example, the two layer (mod-mod and the specific issue level below) might be too complicated for no good reason. One wiki-like page per mod-mod might be better, and maybe have a full forum for each where new topics can be created for specific problems. Or maybe that is unnecessary too.

Any suggestions and thoughts are welcome.

Edited May 29, 2022 by xypista

[OlasMarz]

BIG +1

 

The idea of that portal sounds amazing. It kind of reminds me of Modmapper. I think this would immensely improve user's load orders.

 

I think the easiest way to implement that would be to allow modders/uploaders to simply link the compatibilities/incompatibilities (the same way Nexus currently allows them to link "Requirements/Mods requiring this file" mods to the Nexus description. At the moment everyone just types it in the description or posts a sticky in the comments, ...which is somewhat inconsistent. All of that data (I think) should be able to carry over to Vortex nicely.

vvvv

 

 

 

Even just adding inter-mod compatibility to the mod page tabs (i.e. Files, Comments, Bugs) could be a huge help a lot just to.

vvvvvvv

 

 

I've just been using google sheets to make compatibility spreadsheets for certain category compatibilities that get confusing for me (like animation mods; MBO, JBO, 360WaRP, Underdog, TDM, TUDM, TK Dodge, etc). Which is annoying, but it is what it is. At the same time, users should still know exactly what they are adding to their game.