Collections - Potential and limitations?

[bongodoctor]

Just thinking out loud. I see collections has having a huge potential to allow those without any modding experience to be able to install large complex collections of mods for their favourite games without having to spend hours/days or weeks reading installation instructions, making mistakes and then breaking their games and/or saves. It is already very useful because it allows users to identify a set of mods which is likely to work without conflicts/problems once correctly installed/configured. However there are some limitations which still make the process overly complicated for beginners. If collections is going to be a success it will eventually have to be able to offer a similar one click installation similar to Wabbajack. I know the process is a lot easier for those who have a premium account but there are still some limitations. I realise that Collections is still in Alpha and that some of these limitations are to do with copyright issues but they are worth pointing out/discussing...

 

The installation of normal mods with or without sample settings is unproblematic, and this covers 95% of all the mods that are generally installed. The issue is with a small number of crucial mods/tools that either have to be downloaded from a third party website, or are available on Nexus, but have to be downloaded and copied to file locations, or run as a tool rather than installed by Vortex. Although these are small in number they are often crucial game-breaking elements that if the user does not get right is going to prevent a user getting any/all of the mods to work. I am a computer professional with some development experience and it has taken me several weeks to wade through all the mods, understand their instructions, find and resolve conflicts etc, so I imagine someone who doesn't have an IT background is going to be completely over-whelmed by the shear amount of mods and the disparate nature and quality of the instructions provided by mod creators etc...

 

What are the solutions to this? Well it seems that Collections would have to be able to at least download/install these tools automatically so they would be available for beginners to use, along with instructions on how to run them - or better still just install the output from these files if provided by the collection maker (E.G. DynDOLOD.zips or the USSEP Compatibilty.zips etc) - as they should work fine with this specific set of mods if installed at the right place in the process. With the issue of third party apps (e.g. SKSEVR or SkyUI-VR) Vortex could provide these for premium users by agreeing to pay the creators of these tools a small amount for each download/installation - for non-premium users it might well be that some creators would allow their tools to be linked/included for free without payment in return for credit/recognition during the installation process etc. Again just thinking out loud...

 

Finally, a user having the ability to download and install a collection and then either uninstall it and try a different one, or better still download another one and switch between them would make Collections the perfect mod management tool for beginners - I realise that this would be a massive project and may or may not even be possible, but I can still only dream :smile:

[Zanderat]

I know collections are being sold as requiring little to no modding knowledge. But I have found that, as easy as collections make it, users still need some modding basics learned. There is no way around that.

[xrayy]

I know collections are being sold as requiring little to no modding knowledge. But I have found that, as easy as collections make it, users still need some modding basics learned. There is no way around that.

it needs time that this insight gets spread in the community. but it is worth a thought. some discussions in july 2021 and before in parts of the community seemed to completely omit this point. it is easy to make big plans but what is the final goal ? i admit it sounds good to simplify things.

i think a reduction of complexity of a mod or mods is a goal and a dream of us all, mod authors, users, mod providers.

 

how do we reach it ? just by additional technical means, by picking mod authors as the weakest part in the software chain and without explaining the necessary technical knowledge and background as a whole to all ? i doubt that works in case of software dependent software, dependent from... and so on.

what happens in the industry ? more processes get automated and software gets optimized to do that. what does that mean to the complexity ? it raises, more abstraction layers are introduced. and to put things together we need less jobs and save money but the new jobs we need are more complex. and we talk about a new industrial product with no dependencies at all, not comparable with a piece of software or a mod with its built in dependencies.

 

does an automation model work for games and mods in the end and the mainstream gamer ? at least i doubt that. because games and mods are far away from being as simple and that can be handled like an industrial product. mods are just an enhancing software of an existing but always changing and updated game, also just a piece of more complex software, already always including instabilities and errors, not talking about hw, driver and os dependencies and so on...

i think the restrictions on the mods and mod authors do not change anything regarding that problem. game-, driver- and os-developer still do not care for mods and their dependencies more than ever.

 

the most famous mods are already small or big collections or packs of many small game patches or workarounds and they will never be static objects but instead a farm of always changing dependencies which result in new or changing dependencies. sounds simple and easy ?

 

so we can include more and more abstraction layers - patches, patches of the patches, collections, collections of collections, collections of patches, patches of collections - do we gain simplicity, more stability or an easier to handle and play game in the end ? i doubt that.

the end of the story will often be that the gamer is searching for a solution of his problem but it will be more and more difficult to find anyone who can help or even identify the source of the problem. the time will come some specialists can sell their knowledge to mainstram gamers just to make them able to play their game (at least until the next patch of the game, the collections or whatever).

mods, mod descriptions? what is that ?

 

 

maybe i am too pessimistic. i'm glad if i'm wrong with my vision of gaming and modding in the future. so good luck with simplifying mod handling with more and more complexity hiding it from the mainstream gamer.