Giving up on Vortex for now

[sopmac45]

 

@Tannin42 Well, I'm a bit... disappointed from this answer. I can follow your argument when we speak about plugins. Regarding plugins I think your approach to handle the load order by setting dependencies is well thought and it makes sense.

 

However I can't agree when we speak about mod install order. In another post you wrote, 90% of the MO useres doing it wrong and that's why you removed the feature of manual mod ordering. How can you say so many users doing it wrong when there is not a different possibility to make a proper mod ordering? It is not wrong. There are reasons to do it this way. It is essential to have a proper mod ordering, at least when you installed more than 100 mods. I have installed way more than 1000 texture mods in MO2 (and we don't speak about all other mod categories here) and it is unthinkable to keep an overview without a proper mod ordering. Just for textures I have installed more than 30 fake mods to split the texture mods into different blocks.

 

To be clear, my approach to handle my mods in MO2 is like this:

1.) downloading the mod

2.) installing the mod

3.) mod ordering for organisational purposes (drag and drop it to the right place)

4.) activating the mod

5.) looking for conflicts

6.) solving conflicts by hiding files or by manual change of the position

 

I cannot see what should be wrong here. I handle my large mod list this way without problems for years. You say my approach to handle mods is wrong and Vortex should slap me every time I am doing it. O.k. It's funny to read but it does not help. I say my approach is the only possibility to handle large mod lists. Maybe I have no clue and there are different ways to make a proper mod organization. Well. Then tell me how to make it "right" please.

 

I really try to work with Vortex. I think it is worth to use it. However there are some things that need to be improved. I wrote a large post on the Vortex News page two days ago, trying to give you some constructive feedback. Solving the "mod ordering problem" is essential for me and I think for many other users as well.

 

Please read my post you quoted again. I get the feeling people stop reading the moment they realise I'm not writing "yes, I'll do exactly as you ask". There was more in my last post than that.

 

3.) mod ordering for organisational purposes (drag and drop it to the right place)

6.) solving conflicts by hiding files or by manual change of the position

 

This is what I want to avoid: People using the same mechanism (installation order), once for organization (visual) and once to resolve conflicts. What do you do when the second move to resolve a conflict would break your organization? What if you have some follower mod that conflicts with a quest mod over a script file? Do you break your organisation or do you change how you resolve the conflict just so your organisation stays intakt?

The larger your mod list becomes the more frequent you end up with a conflict of interest between keeping your list in order and resolving your conflicts in the best way.

 

Just to repeat: I do not say you can't or shouldn't organize your list, I will be happy to provide features to do that, I just want to keep conflict resolution separate. And I absolutely can not comprehend how anyone can think this is a bad thing or that it's somehow less powerful than what other modding tools do.

 

 

 

I am not an expert. From NMM to Vortex there is a curve of learning. Yes, in NMM I am able to drag and place any plugin where I want ... but doing that will not resolve conflicts between my mods ... Tannin's approach is much better because the conflict will be resolved and my game will be more stable and most likely, with much less CTD's .... yes, when I take a look at Vortex in YouTube, I still do not understand how to deal with dependencies but I hope that once I get my hands on Vortex, and after watching the upcoming Gopher's video tutorial, I will be able to handle it.

 

It is confusing though, I admit, having a list ( mod list ) in a different way the plugins are or not showing which one is first and last ... again, I still need to play with Vortex to have my very own opinion about it, but, I trust what Tannin did and at the end of the day, will help us to play our game without any fuss.

 

I do not know if I am understanding this correctly, but probably, Vortex should show us the visual list of plugins in the order they have been handled once dependencies took place, I mean, the final list to play our games. Having that list ( for visual and aesthetic purposes only ) will kind of help us to understand how our plugins are set for our game. This list should be static, no admitting any changes ( under the tab is kept ) and if we add / remove a mod, or change dependencies, that list should be automatically updated. Probably it will help us to understand what we have in our game.

 

I hope that Tannin agrees to this. Again, even though I still do not understand dependencies very well, I know that at the end of the day, this is the right approach. The purpose of a mod program is to allow the user to play his/her game, without any fuss and to allow that user to either let the program decides what the load order should be or to allow the user to manually change things. I think that Vortex has both. I can't wait to put my hands on it and start learning this new stuff that I am pretty sure it is much better than NMM. Have no experience at all with MO.

[d81]

 

You can keep digging at me if you want, but I apologize, again.

Sorry, I didn't mean to dig at you again, I just wanted to demonstrate how different people want different things from me. Some want to discuss the reasons

for the decisions, some want to convince me to change it, yet others see it as misleading to have the debate when a decision has already been made and is

unlikely to change.

I can't make everone happy and that's frustrating, but it's none of your fault or anyone elses.

 

I'll just say this again: I don't like to say "never". I don't think a discussion is pointless but I will say here and now that convincing me on this won't be easy.

Whether you want to have a discussion under these circumstances is up to any individual, just keep it civil please.

And we should really stop the meta discussion about the discussion. Many were unhappy with how it went, rightfully though, the best we can do now is try to get it back on track.

 

 

Sounds good to me, I'm all out of juice :smile:

 

Arhtmoor gave all the good arguments, I don't have any left. Your ideas are good, and I hope it works out.

 

The scenario that made me throw my hands up in exasperation is as follows:

 

I have over 80+ plugins I work on related to my mod.

I need these plugins in a specific order, no getting around it. Not just for visuals, I need their masters to line up in the header.

I need to, preferably quickly, move plugins above and below each other to add/remove masters to them as I edit variations of the same files.

It is much, much easier to group them together, usually pseudo-alphabetically, to prepare the files for editing. There is no way I could reasonably work on these files otherwise.

Finding the files in the Vortex interface and assigning priorities was...less than user friendly. I did not finish.

 

This is why I am still using NMM, for the profile capability, even though it's been a dead project for a while and screws me over every once in a while.

 

I could not come up with a reasonable workflow in Vortex for this (admittedly uncommon) situation. However, it is a situation I deal with regularly, daily if I have the time.

 

A potential solution is an easy way to change global priorities with the keyboard. Perhaps Ctrl+Up/Down to increment them.

[Tannin42]

not know if I am understanding this correctly, but probably, Vortex should show us the visual list of plugins in the order they have been handled once dependencies took place, I mean, the final list to play our games. Having that list ( for visual and aesthetic purposes only ) will kind of help us to understand how our plugins are set for our game. This list should be static, no admitting any changes ( under the tab is kept ) and if we add / remove a mod, or change dependencies, that list should be automatically updated. Probably it will help us to understand what we have in our game.

 

You can do that, you can sort the list by load order or mod index to see what order they were placed in. Just click the corresponding table header.

 

 

 

I have over 80+ plugins I work on related to my mod.

I need these plugins in a specific order, no getting around it. Not just for visuals, I need their masters to line up in the header.

I need to, preferably quickly, move plugins above and below each other to add/remove masters to them as I edit variations of the same files.

It is much, much easier to group them together, usually pseudo-alphabetically, to prepare the files for editing. There is no way I could reasonably work on these files otherwise.

Finding the files in the Vortex interface and assigning priorities was...less than user friendly. I did not finish.

 

...

 

A potential solution is an easy way to change global priorities with the keyboard. Perhaps Ctrl+Up/Down to increment them.

 

Yes, a hotkey to quickly change the priorities shouldn't be doable. I've added it to the todo list. It should also be fairly easy to allow multiple plugins be assigned a priority at once,

so you could quickly form groups by selecting a bunch of plugins and then enter a prio in the sidebar once.

[d81]

Yes, a hotkey to quickly change the priorities shouldn't be doable. I've added it to the todo list. It should also be fairly easy to allow multiple plugins be assigned a priority at once,

so you could quickly form groups by selecting a bunch of plugins and then enter a prio in the sidebar once.

 

 

I'm going to take that shouldn't as should :smile:

 

Both those feature additions sound great, thanks!

 

Don't know how hard it would be, but if that shortcut could be accompanied by some kind of visual indication of what will happen when I press the Sort button, I would be a happy camper...but if that's too much forget about it :devil:

[HeyYou]

 

It's best to just come out and say you aren't going to add the manual sorting or change the current sorting way

I did. On the very first day of release in the known issues post. That's what I've been criticised for, because giving an honest, direct statement is apparently "dismissive".

 

That is to say: We have no plans at this time to add it, but I have an open mind, I'm fully capable of changing my opinion if I hear a good argument.

 

How about: Because it seems quite a few folks want it? Isn't that a good enough argument? Its not like folks are going to get mad at you for including it........

[Tannin42]

How about: Because it seems quite a few folks want it? Isn't that a good enough argument? Its not like folks are going to get mad at you for including it........

 

This is incredible hard to judge. How many folks want it, after they actually used the current implementation in vortex and when they know other features will be delayed or canceled for it? It's important to understand that

including this is not free at all.

And how many people would have preferred those features over manual plugin ordering?

How do I measure this? How representative are the people on these threads? And do they actually all want the same?

This thread here is a wonderful example: OldMansBeard wanted manual plugin ordering because he always used that to have precise control over the mod index of a single plugin, but there are other ways to achieve that

that are more precisely tailored to that need.

So how many folks still need manual plugin ordering after we've had time to optimize the ui and add some more specific solutions?

I honestly don't know, and neither do you.

[eldarstorm]

 

How about: Because it seems quite a few folks want it? Isn't that a good enough argument? Its not like folks are going to get mad at you for including it........

 

This is incredible hard to judge. How many folks want it, after they actually used the current implementation in vortex and when they know other features will be delayed or canceled for it? It's important to understand that

including this is not free at all.

And how many people would have preferred those features over manual plugin ordering?

How do I measure this? How representative are the people on these threads? And do they actually all want the same?

This thread here is a wonderful example: OldMansBeard wanted manual plugin ordering because he always used that to have precise control over the mod index of a single plugin, but there are other ways to achieve that

that are more precisely tailored to that need.

So how many folks still need manual plugin ordering after we've had time to optimize the ui and add some more specific solutions?

I honestly don't know, and neither do you.

 

 

I am not judging myself if its a needed feature or not as I have only just downloaded this to test it.

One of the other methods many have mentioned is using NMM as a solution for ordering. I do not think this is a viable alternative as this is supposed to replace NMM.

I would also like to point out as someone who has F4 and F4VR installed at the same time, NMM is a pain as you have to jury rig it to work with F4VR (makes it hard to use for regular F4 at this point)

 

Sorry if I am a bit jumbled, just had a quick moment to go over all this.

[MarchinBunny]

This way Vortex is doing things is not going to change. It's best to just come out and say you aren't going to add the manual sorting or change the current sorting way and just remove useless comments (unless you have done that already, I stopped reading when this became a school debate with the modpack guy trying to tell everyone how he's right). Otherwise this will just drag on without any advance on either side, and with little to no useful data. If there will be a plugin doing what some of us want, maybe we'll use. If not, there's other choices and we're not forced to pick vortex or else.

You are seriously not a very nice person. calling me "the modpack guy". God, I hate you. And I wasn't trying to tell everyone how I was right. I was literally just repeating what had already been said by Tannin. So please don't insult me and try to start crap. I mean seriously what was the point in even mentioning that and saying it in that manner?

 

Not like you were even right about the whole mod list thing anyway since it does seem to be on the todo list. I mean you seriously sound pretty salty about it. Not a guy btw.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Brabbit1987

[HeyYou]

 

How about: Because it seems quite a few folks want it? Isn't that a good enough argument? Its not like folks are going to get mad at you for including it........

 

This is incredible hard to judge. How many folks want it, after they actually used the current implementation in vortex and when they know other features will be delayed or canceled for it? It's important to understand that

including this is not free at all.

And how many people would have preferred those features over manual plugin ordering?

How do I measure this? How representative are the people on these threads? And do they actually all want the same?

This thread here is a wonderful example: OldMansBeard wanted manual plugin ordering because he always used that to have precise control over the mod index of a single plugin, but there are other ways to achieve that

that are more precisely tailored to that need.

So how many folks still need manual plugin ordering after we've had time to optimize the ui and add some more specific solutions?

I honestly don't know, and neither do you.

 

Maybe give it some time, see how things go, take it from there. If enough folks want it, include it in an update at some point.

[Arthmoor]

Honestly didn't expect a response, so thank you for providing one :)

 

This post was, fortunately, mostly about plugin ordering, but yeah, install/asset ordering is a whole separate topic that deserves its own discussion.

Probably so, yes, but you're right. Most of the attention is on the plugin ordering right now. I'd say for good reason too.

 

Vortex actually treats this differently from Wrye Bash/MO as well, which I why it's also a rather hot topic, but I'll leave it at that to keep this thread on topic.

You have my curiosity up if nothing else.

 

From my understanding, and it's certainly possible my understanding is incomplete, Vortex should be helping mod authors with this.

I'm not really seeing how it will help since there's going to be A LOT more people asking about how to set up rules and make this stuff work and there are an awful lot of mod authors out there like me who don't use LOOT because we don't need to and thus aren't familiar with details like this and can't help them. They'll have to go somewhere for that help and may not be happy about that.

 

See, but this is my first question (and it's an honest question I'd be happy to get an answer to): How is this at all a way to solve conflicts?
Yes, it's the technical way you rearrange plugins so they load in a valid order but how is a beginner supposed to know which plugins he needs to rearrange?
The base mechanism (drag&drop) is simple but it doesn't provide the knowledge to know what you're supposed to do with it so that's not simple.
Speaking in one of my stupid analogies: Paint is a very simple tool that's so basic it's included with windows. But that doesn't mean it's the best way to draw, say, a technical diagram,
a more sophisticated, specialised application might be better.

If manually rearranging your load order doesn't resolve conflicts, then logic dictates that neither will LOOT since ultimately all LOOT is doing is rearranging your mods.

Adjusting one's load order is the first step to conflict resolution. LOOT fills the role of the first step in adjusting one's load order, but again, it is not the LAST step and should not be. The entire reason for LOOT to exist in the first place was to attempt to fix the issue of BOSS becoming unwieldy to maintain global rules for. What you're basically proposing at this point is to turn the LOOT masterlists into the same thing, which will become unwieldy at some point with all of the exceptions and conditions people are going to try and push through.

Besides, as we all know, not all conflicts can be fixed by load order alone. That's a subject for another tool though.

As far as providing the knowledge, whether or not one uses Votrex's system vs manual drag n drop hardly matters. The user still needs to know they have to move that plugin somehow. All I see Vortex accomplishing in the end is breeding a new batch of even more ignorant users who have no idea what a load order even is. This is exactly what we don't want to be doing.

 

Next question (again, honestly asking, hoping for reply): Why can't it be? I mean, sure, in the current state you may have to set user rules (which you can do directly from the vortex ui via drag&drop),
but in what situation would loot with the correct user rules be insufficient to do your load order?
I've been using loot for all my load ordering since it was released, boss before that. I too have had load orders with roughly 200 plugins and I've never
needed more than two or three user rules, so from my experience it works perfectly fine.
But again, I don't assume my experience is representative for everyone, which is why I'd be happy to hear others.

I think I've more or less already explained this, but arriving at this idealistic solution where LOOT sorts everyone's load orders correctly every time is going to cause a lot of long term upheaval, upset people, etc. The whole idea assumes most users are incapable of learning basic mod management. Which is ironic since LOOT rules are not considered a basic topic of mod management. They require some level of additional knowledge to implement correctly.

As I already said, right now all I have to do is tell them to drag it above or below the one they're trying to resolve a problem with. I don't need to know which mod manager to use. They all have that one basic feature in common.

With Vortex I need to explain to them how rules work and how specifically to do it in a program I won't ever be using. If you don't think users will expect the mod authors to know this stuff you haven't been paying attention at all.

 

Why would it have an impact on him at this time?
We have considered adding a way to submit new rules from inside Vortex but it's not been implemented and nowhere inside Vortex do we even suggest people should take
their problems with the sorting to the loot maintainers.
Obviously if we do go forward with a rule-suggestion system we would coordinate with WrinklyNinja and make sure only curated rules get even sent to him.

That you haven't consulted him on this seems disturbing to me since whether you realize it or not, people will begin bringing these issues up to him and/or his team once Vortex hits open alpha.

I genuinely hope you aren't going to go down the road of one day allowing users to submit potential masterlist adjustments that way. It really didn't work out in the end with BOSS and I'm not sure how it would work out very well with LOOT either. Those things NEED to be curated by people who know how to verify that what's being submitted is valid and you'll just cause the same ginormous backlog problems that existed before, only on a much larger scale due to the size of the Nexus userbase.

 

I didn't call anyone dumb, but are you going to disagree that some users may not have the experience to do it?

You may not have directly called them dumb, but your development choices clearly indicate an assumption of incompetence at the very least.

I agree that SOME users may not have the experience, but those same users are capable of following a simple instruction to drag one mod to a new position to resolve a conflict. I would personally never tell them to do so to satisfy their OCD about how the text flows or something.

 

This should be easy to replicated in loot and could thus be automated as well. We could have a masterlist (fork) that uses global priorities to replicate the
plugin groups from the template and then use rules only for the exceptions. Loot would still enforce stuff like esm < esl < esp.
It would be interested to see if that actually created better/more pleasant load orders than the current master list.

The point I was trying to make here was not that they found a good way to provide for an alternative automated system. It was that they found a way to deal with the reality of modding that works for them. All without ANY of them having advanced enough knowledge of the subject at first. I know it may sound demeaning to phrase it this way, but if they can figure this stuff out on their own then why can't Nexus users? Why do Nexus users require so much more hand holding and automation layers?

 

Ok, this requires a correction, because I hear it far too often. This part sounds like the loot/vortex approach took away control or was there "to protect people from themselves".
This is simply not true, you can control the load order with rules and priorities. This is not a restricted mode in which you can't do something you could do in other managers.
It is simply a different means of control that plays better with loot because you can repeat the ordering at any time without losing your manual adjustments.

You may not be intending it that way, but the reality is that's how it's coming across in pretty much every response on the subject you've given. You have made it clear you think manual mod ordering is a bad idea and that this new way is the best way, but it was clearly born out of an assumption that users can't or won't bother to learn basic mod management for their games. Maybe the support you've built in to account for other games makes that a great deal more difficult to manage, I wouldn't know, but for Bethesda games it comes off in no other way than trying to protect the poor helpless newbies.

 

The real question is just: Does the amount of work loot takes off you by automating most of the load order offset the amount of work that's added because setting a rule is less convenient than
putting the plugin in place directly.

We can already answer this right now since most people use LOOT as their starting point. Yes, it's inconvenient to make people set rules when all they need to do is drag something once.

Your argument appears to be based on the assumption that whenever someone starts a new game that they're also starting from an entirely new set of mods. This is generally not the case as most mod users will be using the bulk of the same mods in their new games with a few changes to fit what they're doing.

 

We're not, ideally loots masterlist will be extended to the point where the majority of users will never even have to touch the plugin order and still get a
perfectly fine, stable, load order.
And if you do want to go in-depth then "you set up a rule "a after b" so that a gets loaded after b" is reaaally not that complicated imho.

Yet the problem is that with compatibility patches being a reality, complex rules to load these things will be necessary and common. We don't live in an ideal world where the masterlist will be true and perfect. Far from it. It will be a backlog of reports which are themselves contradictory. Hell, the whole reason those rules exist at all was because the masterlists are not universally capable of handing everything. They are the exception handling mechanism of LOOT.

 

It doesn't have to be you, any user can contribute rules to loot and once they did you won't get the question at all.
The masterlist is a wonderful shared community knowledge.

I am aware of this, and I do contribute when I have something to offer, but I also know what I'm submitting to be accurate and it generally does not require the extra curation steps. Plus right now the workload is light. Sending thousands of new users unfamiliar with things over there to submit rules will be a disaster that never ends.

 

No one said it's wrong. I'm not saying the way Vortex is working is the only "right" way to do it. It would just be extremely inconvenient, considering
development, maintenance and UI to have multiple approaches in Vortex and I felt we should go with only one officially supported approach, especially considering Vortex does support extensions
and will thus allow others to add what they feel is missing.
And I felt that loot based ordering is the most likely to work well for both beginners and advanced users, especially considering that our competition today
isn't just wrye bash and MO but also steam workshop, bethnet and mod drop.

Actually the Grand Inquisitor as she's been called has flat out said the "old" ways are wrong but has utterly failed to explain why. You may not have said it, but even she's come to that conclusion.

Also, again, what's the one thing MO, Wrye Bash, Steam Workshop, Mod Drop (ugh), NMM, and even the vanilla game UI have in common? Manual load order by drag n drop. How wrong can it really be? How hard is it really?

 

Nothing was "removed", Vortex is a new application, it never had this feature.

Semantics. The feature was removed from consideration. IMO it's so basic that the only logical thing to conclude is that it was removed.

 

Isn't it? If your argument is: Users know what they are doing and if they consider a feature essential and "basic" the devs shouldn't patronize them,
why wouldn't I implement BSA unpacking? Who are you and me to tell users what they should and shouldn't be doing?

No, see, this isn't the same thing at all. Manual load order adjustment is a basic feature shared by all mod managers except Vortex. It's well understood.

Unpacking BSAs in the mod manager was an exclusive feature to MO and you yourself have since admitted it was a bad idea to include it. It was never well understood even by many veteran modders and it was far more prone to catastrophic mistakes than you'd ever see with a bad drag n drop operation on an ESP file.

If users want to unpack BSAs and shoot themselves in the foot, they're welcome to do so, but as even you realized, offering them the loaded gun was a bad choice.

 

Finally, just let me say something here again: I did not leave out manual ordering because I think people are incapable of doing it. I left it out because I think that
rule-based and manual ordering are two ways to achieve the same thing that don't mix, because the rule based ordering would always overwrite the manual ordering.
So realistically you will stop using loot the moment you have done any serious manual adjustments, meaning all mods you install afterwards you have to
order manually, even if loot would be able to handle them fine.
And for one thing, I'd rather not invest the time implementing a second way to achieve the same, there are plenty of other features I could be implementing in the same
time (time is limited, the list of feature wishes is practically infinite) and I'd like to avoid feature creep that makes the UI too complex.
Even if we "hid" manual ordering behind an "advanced" button that button would still be on the ui, we would have to explain to the user what it does so he can judge
if he is advanced, tutorials would have to mention it and so on.
Not a big thing for this one button but if we do it every time someone comes up with a feature that is "well, wouldn't hurt to have it, right?" the UI turns into a mess.

You've made your position on this crystal clear. It's your choice. We don't have to like it though, and many of us will choose to find our solutions elsewhere as we always have. Don't be surprised if you find that some mod authors even begin disabling the "Download in Manager" buttons on their mods to force people to consider what they're doing.

 

Again, all this is based on my base assumption that loot with user rules can be made to provide a stable load order for both beginners and advanced users with a reduced amount of work.

That's quite an assumption which I think many people have tried to explain to you is wrong.

 

Do they? In a modding community? This entire community is about people not being happy with what has been provided to them and have the wish to extend it.

This is a modding community. Not a programmers club :P

 

Linux runs on almost 90% of Smartphones today. It is used heavily (have no stats) on servers and embedded systems everywhere. It may actually be the single most relevant os
on the market (considering there are more android phones than PCs and iOS devices combined) because it is flexible and extensible.

I should probably have clarified that I meant as a mainstream desktop OS. There's no way you could argue that the 2% market share it currently has in that space is at all equivalent to smartphone use. Linux gaming is still in its infancy. Valve had a golden opportunity to change this and either got bored or chose not to pursue it.

But I think you knew what I was getting at since this discussion was never about smartphone gaming or getting Vortex to run on an Android device.

 

Forcing people to adopt a new standard is what you have to do with every new standard. Show me any single case in history where there was no resistance to a new standard? Heck, people cried
over the loss of their trusty typewriters when PCs came along.
That's not saying what Vortex does has to be the new standard, I'm just saying some resistance doesn't convince me I'm wrong.

"Embrace, extend, and extinguish" is all I have to say to that with regard to the Microsoft comparison.

 

This way Vortex is doing things is not going to change. It's best to just come out and say you aren't going to add the manual sorting or change the current sorting way and just remove useless comments (unless you have done that already, I stopped reading when this became a school debate with the modpack guy trying to tell everyone how he's right). Otherwise this will just drag on without any advance on either side, and with little to no useful data. If there will be a plugin doing what some of us want, maybe we'll use. If not, there's other choices and we're not forced to pick vortex or else.

Yep, I'm satisfied with the answers given and will simply avoid using it myself, and may take steps to reduce the support burden it's going to inevitably cause me. I doubt very much an extension will be forthcoming that will fix all of this, but stranger things have happened.

 

Seeing how much back-and-forth discussion this has caused I'm pretty sure this functionality will be implemented by someone eventually.

...

Anyway, my point is I think you're underestimating people's willingness to provide these kind of extensions expecially if it's something that creates a lot of debate. I think the extensions thing is potentially the best thing about vortex

There's a big difference between eventually and shortly after release. "Eventually" does nobody any good because by then the damage is done. Extensions are nice in theory, but in practice rarely charge to the rescue. People aren't even willing to step up to help refine and develop existing tools we all rely on, what makes you think Vortex will suddenly change this?