Giving up on Vortex for now

[AL12]

About the the fact that we cannot expect extensions to made so easily debate, I would wait to actually see how those work, how much programming knowledge is needed, how well the whole thing is documented etc. before being able to tell either way. After all Mod Organizer also supports plugins and extensions but none was made from the community except for game handling plugin. I'm fairly confident that the Vortex extension system will be better than that, since it seems that quite a bit of thought went into it, and I'm really looking forward to actually see how it is structured and how accessible that is. I believe that based on that Vortex can take very different directions. This is a modding community and if the it is easy and accessible enough people will make "mods" for it making Vortex really hard not to use. If they turn up to not be as accessible Vortex will have to rely much more on internal development, and people will inevitably be unhappy if that development does not reflect what they wished for the program to do.

On a side note @Arthmoor, Vortex does implement its personal method of setting up rules for the plugin loadorder which is different than loot, it is definitely faster and more intuitive (even if still not at the level of simply moving around the plugins in my opinion). You can drag and drop the "link" icon from one plugin over another to set up a rule between them from a selectable list. Maybe you can find a video showcasing this if you don't have the alfa, since it is not easy to explain.
My take on the new system is that it forces people to be conscious of the conflicts they actually want to resolve since they have to outright state a rule, whereas previous tools allowed people to simply move a plugin to the bottom without needing them to actually find out what the problem is, for better or worse.

Edited February 10, 2018 by al12rs

[Dark0ne]

I'd like to note that NMM has received several community updates in the past few months from users in the community pushing to the GitHub page including not just fixes, but some additional (albeit minor) functionality additions. It's actually been quite impressive.

 

I also fully intend to provide a bounty system for any would be extension makers who are willing to pitch their ideas to us and make good on their ideas, so hopefully we can incentivise some sought after extensions that way.

 

Finally, we intend to give Nexus Mods itself (and in turn, Vortex) its own "Game" on the site, from which you'll be able to download these extensions, as well as Greasemonkey scripts for Nexus Mods itself.

 

This obviously doesn't mean that anyone is going to actually make an extension, just that we'll be trying our hardest to incentivise and promote the extension system moving forward.

[sopmac45]

 

 

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.

 

 

 

I am one of those people that would prefer that Vortex with LOOT, handle the plugin sorting and dependencies rather than manually plugin load order. I suggested from the very beginning in the Vortex news article that mod authors should include a code inside their mods to be read by Vortex / LOOT so when sorting the plugins, that mod will be automatically placed in the order the mod author recommended. This is very possible and it would be much better for mod authors rather than being answering questions in the mod posts. Everybody wins if this is done because mod authors will not have to worry anymore about answering questions, their mods will work as they should, the players will not have to focus anymore or worry anymore about manually placing that mod in the correct order so we ( the players ) can focus on playing our games without any fuss.

 

I think that Tannin already mentioned something like that that will be implemented in the future and to be honest, I would love that Vortex / LOOT sort my plugins, resolve conflicts automatically by just clicking a button rather than breaking my head deciding which one should override which. I am not against those who want to do that manually and resolve conflicts in the way Vortex offers, but I would prefer that task is being done automatically by Vortex or LOOT and just focus on playing my game. Period.

 

I can guarantee that from the 100% of the community, at least 90% do not know how to fix / resolve conflicts or do not have any idea which mode should override which, what does negative numbers in the load order means, where should we place a mod with too many conflicts, up or down ?, etc, etc, ... the remaining 10%, I can guarantee that 5% are people that talk about their knowledge making everybody believe they are masters but they are not; the remaining 5% are people who really knows everything about how to resolve conflicts, dealing with xEdit, CK, LOOT, etc, etc but .... I can also guarantee that from that 5%, perhaps only 1% really knows programing to the point they could discuss with Tannin face to face, so, at least I do not see in this whole thread, anybody that belongs to this 1% I am talking about.

 

Bottom line, whoever complained about why we cannot drag and drop as NMM let us do, could not come up with a valid reasons about why that is much better than Tannin's approach. None of you. You were talking and talking but did none of you come up with a really solid and deep reason to convince Tannin that what he did, is not better than what they are proposing.

 

So, whoever wants to manually do stuff in Vortex, you have that capability already. Go ahead and play with that as you please, resolving conflicts in your plugins. You belong to a few. The great and vast majority of us, would prefer to download / install our mods, let Vortex / LOOT to sort and resolve conflicts between mods and play our games. Because simply put, we do not have the knowledge of a few and we should not, to be honest. We are players not modders so in my case, I should not be dealing with something I do not want to deal at all : manually resolve conflicts ... not because I do not want to learn but because there is not a manual, a set of tutorials that teach me from A to Z what to do, how to resolve this and that and I do not have to be guessing and mess up my game. I would love to learn but the teaching has never been there, well organized in the way that anybody can understand it. Ultimately, what I want is to have some entertainment by playing my games, not to have a headache dealing with plugin load order and conflicts.

 

The day that Vortex make this automatically ( if not already ), the vast majority of the community ( 90% or more ) will be very happy. We login to Vortex to play and have fun, not to have headaches and having to restart our games from scratch because a bad load order or conflicts between mods. You get tired of that when you do not know how to fix stuff, so for me and I am very sure that for the great majority, it is a great benefit to have Vortex to do the thinking for me. I am not lazy, but I come to Nexus to looking for mods that I can play via Vortex which should ease my experience and help me to play my games without any fuss. Ultimately, that should the whole purpose of a mod program and never the contrary as it has been.

 

Those who want to manually resolve conflicts and talk about their achievements and believe they are masters loaders, etc, go ahead and continue doing what you are doing and enjoy your time doing that. I have no problem at all with whatever you do but remember that you do not belong to the great majority and Vortex has been developed to make it easier for the 90% and the remaining 10%. Everybody wins here, so instead complaining about why we cannot drag and move as we did with NMM or MO, go ahead and suggest how to make Vortex so intelligent that we would not have to worry in the short future, how to deal with mod conflicts and plugin load orders.

[d81]

Finally, we intend to give Nexus Mods itself (and in turn, Vortex) its own "Game" on the site, from which you'll be able to download these extensions, as well as Greasemonkey scripts for Nexus Mods itself.

 

This obviously doesn't mean that anyone is going to actually make an extension, just that we'll be trying our hardest to incentivise and promote the extension system moving forward.

 

I think the extension system is going to take off. If all it takes to add new functionality to Vortex is a JSON manifest and some JavaScript people will dive in quick. I can't code an alert box without a tutorial and can understand some of what's going on in the default extensions. :tongue:

[Arthmoor]

Bottom line, whoever complained about why we cannot drag and drop as NMM let us do, could not come up with a valid reasons about why that is much better than Tannin's approach. None of you. You were talking and talking but did none of you come up with a really solid and deep reason to convince Tannin that what he did, is not better than what they are proposing.

Nah, people actually did provide good arguments for why they want it, and all of the reasons were perfectly valid. Tannin has simply made it clear that no matter how good those arguments are, he isn't going to implement the feature. Which is fine, but he could have ended the discussion by simply saying it'll never happen.

 

It remains to be seen whether or not anyone will bother to try and make an extension for it. We may all be modders and this may be a modding community, but modders are not necessarily programmers and Vortex needs programmers to write the extensions.

[HadToRegister]

As someone who has been modding since back in Morrowind days, who is currently running a Crash-Free Morrowind using M-Lox (kind of an early Wrye-Bash for Morrowind), a Crash-Free Oblivion using WryeBash, along with TEsedit to make my own patches etc, and a crash free SSE using NMM as the Mod downloader, and WryeBash and SSEEDit to make my patches and manually adjust my load order and find conflicts, (Currently pushing my luck with SSE by going the "Mod it until it breaks" route, because everything is working too well, lol)
In the months I tried LOOT I found it to be non-intuitive to work with, one caveat, (hopefully it has been stomped in Vortex) I also found that it's super easy to get a "Circular Reference" when using LOOT's ability to force mods to load after other mods if you happen to click on the wrong mod.
I had set up my Fallout 4 load order that way, to make sure that a nice Armor Mod would ALWAYS load after a certain mod, but then, LOOT would just keep randomly ordering everything that loaded AFTER that mod I had set the rule for, so it never actually kept the same load order, and it never did.

Run LOOT "X" number of times, and get "X" different suggested load order from LOOT, that's why I always clicked CANCEL and ordered my load order manually, because at least I was consistent.

Hopefully those things have been ironed out in Vortex, otherwise, the Circular Reference Gremlin is going to bite new users in the butt quite frequently, and I won't be surprised if at first there's a lot of "What's a circular reference?", "HELP!! Circular reference in load order!" help threads pop up, because it's really easy to do, and I consider myself pretty experienced in setting up my load order.
I understand LOOT rules and how they work, I just found they really slowed down my process for organizing and getting my load order to work, and after a few months of using it I just got tired of it and ended up removing it never to use it again, especially when I found myself clicking on "CANCEL" after LOOT order my load order, and found that manually ordering my load order actually got me the results I wanted.

I understand for some people LOOT is intuitive for them, while for others, Manual ordering is intuitive for them.
I'm always about EVERYBODY have every OPTION at their disposal. Want to use LOOT-like load ordering? Go ahead! Want to use Manual Load ordering? Go Ahead.
The people who have been pointing out the Negatives of LOOT, don't want it REMOVED from Vortex, they just want other OPTIONS for sorting their load order.
NOBODY is saying "Get rid of Loot", they're saying "Give us other options along with LOOT."
That is the biggest miscommunication here.

Anyway Arthmoor has said what a lot of us have been trying to say, so many Kudos to him for that.
I'll just continue on using what has worked, and still is working for me, and maybe down the road, after a few releases/upgrades/feature additions of Vortex, when I get an itch to Reinstall FO3 or FONV in the future and want to redo my load orders for those two games I'll give Vortex a try, because I'm open to new things, but I always advocate for "OPTIONS"

[HadToRegister]

 

I can guarantee that from the 100% of the community, at least 90% do not know how to fix / resolve conflicts or do not have any idea which mode should override which, what does negative numbers in the load order means, where should we place a mod with too many conflicts, up or down ?, etc, etc, ... the remaining 10%, I can guarantee that 5% are people that talk about their knowledge making everybody believe they are masters but they are not; the remaining 5% are people who really knows everything about how to resolve conflicts, dealing with xEdit, CK, LOOT, etc, etc but .... I can also guarantee that from that 5%, perhaps only 1% really knows programing to the point they could discuss with Tannin face to face, so, at least I do not see in this whole thread, anybody that belongs to this 1% I am talking about.

 

You belong to a few. The great and vast majority of us, would prefer to download / install our mods, let Vortex / LOOT to sort and resolve conflicts between mods and play our games.

 

The day that Vortex make this automatically ( if not already ), the vast majority of the community ( 90% or more ) will be very happy.

 

I have no problem at all with whatever you do but remember that you do not belong to the great majority and Vortex has been developed to make it easier for the 90% and the remaining 10%.

 

Word of advice, when you're going to base your entire argument on an "Argumentum ad Populum" argument fallacy about some "Vast Majority" of people who want the same thing as you do, while claiming there's only a "small minority" of people who disagree with you, you really need to provide citations for those numbers.

 

If you notice, people who have been against LOOT, are only against LOOT being the ONLY OPTION for load order sorting, they aren't demanding to get rid of, and remove loot, they are only wanting OTHER OPTIONS in ADDITION TO LOOT.

None of these people are making wild and outlandish claims about "Vast Majorities" of people, or "Small Minorities" of people wanting one method over another.

 

WHY do people jump to the conclusion that if people say something negative about a thing that those people want that thing eliminated?

That is NOT the case here.

The people saying negative things about LOOT, only want the OPTION to sort their Load order using OTHER TECHNIQUES, IN ADDITION TO LOOT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MarchinBunny]

 

 

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?

 

 

 

Jeez, seriously? Please don't call me the Grand Inquisitor lol XD.

Also, You are full of crap dude. I never said the old way is the wrong way. I said organizing your plugins by category is the wrong way. I said the new way is a better way, but never said the old way was flat out wrong. Clearly it wasn't wrong cause we have been using it for a while now. However, let me be clear, a lot of people do use it wrong or don't know how to use it at all.

 

You have to consider the vast majority of people who use nexus, honestly probably does not read the front page of mods. So it doesn't matter if the mod author tells them on the front page, to load their mod after such and such. A lot of people don't read it, and then need help only to be told in the comments what was listed on the front page to begin with.

 

Tannin is trying to circumvent this very issue.

His current method doesn't actually remove being able to control the load order in whatever way you want. If you want to order your plugins manually, you can do this using rules. There is even a drag and drop functionality to create such rules.

 

The issue is people are coming here and saying the new way is not intutive or isn't allowing them to control their load order, which is entirely false. A lot of people are coming here with assumptions or with very little experience in actually using what they are complaining about.

 

Also, when Tannin said that drag and dropping load order manually doesn't resolve conflict, he meant the act of doing it without a reason or knowledge to do it. If I grab a random mod and drag and drop it in a random location, that isn't resolving conflicts. That's more like taking a deck of cards and just throwing them in the air hoping with the possiblity the land in the correct order. Truthfully, I think he explained himself well already and you are jsut not listening to what he is saying.

[MarchinBunny]

 

 

I can guarantee that from the 100% of the community, at least 90% do not know how to fix / resolve conflicts or do not have any idea which mode should override which, what does negative numbers in the load order means, where should we place a mod with too many conflicts, up or down ?, etc, etc, ... the remaining 10%, I can guarantee that 5% are people that talk about their knowledge making everybody believe they are masters but they are not; the remaining 5% are people who really knows everything about how to resolve conflicts, dealing with xEdit, CK, LOOT, etc, etc but .... I can also guarantee that from that 5%, perhaps only 1% really knows programing to the point they could discuss with Tannin face to face, so, at least I do not see in this whole thread, anybody that belongs to this 1% I am talking about.

 

You belong to a few. The great and vast majority of us, would prefer to download / install our mods, let Vortex / LOOT to sort and resolve conflicts between mods and play our games.

 

The day that Vortex make this automatically ( if not already ), the vast majority of the community ( 90% or more ) will be very happy.

 

I have no problem at all with whatever you do but remember that you do not belong to the great majority and Vortex has been developed to make it easier for the 90% and the remaining 10%.

Word of advice, when you're going to base your entire argument on an "Argumentum ad Populum" argument fallacy about some "Vast Majority" of people who want the same thing as you do, while claiming there's only a "small minority" of people who disagree with you, you really need to provide citations for those numbers.

 

If you notice, people who have been against LOOT, are only against LOOT being the ONLY OPTION for load order sorting, they aren't demanding to get rid of, and remove loot, they are only wanting OTHER OPTIONS in ADDITION TO LOOT.

None of these people are making wild and outlandish claims about "Vast Majorities" of people, or "Small Minorities" of people wanting one method over another.

 

WHY do people jump to the conclusion that if people say something negative about a thing that those people want that thing eliminated?

That is NOT the case here.

The people saying negative things about LOOT, only want the OPTION to sort their Load order using OTHER TECHNIQUES, IN ADDITION TO LOOT.

 

 

 

Well, to be fair, I doubt he is wrong. Do you really need numbers to back up the idea that most users on nexus don't know what they are doing? This technically the case in most communities. A lot of people will not even touch modding because they don't feel comfortable enough doing so.

 

I think it's just a factual statement that ease of use is typically something most people want.

 

Also, we understand you are not asking to get rid of any option, you just want it as an additional option. But we really need a very good reason for it because as of right now, sorting load order is already possible using rules and it even has a drag and drop functionality to create those rules. It's pretty quick, and not very complicated to do. Plus for those who really want to do it the old way, an extension is very likely to be made.

 

I would eat my hat if someone didn't make an extension that did this.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Brabbit1987

[HadToRegister]

 

Do you really need numbers to back up the idea that most users on nexus don't know what they are doing?

 

Also, we understand you are not asking to get rid of any option, you just want it as an additional option. But we really need a very good reason for it because as of right now, sorting load order is already possible using rules and it even has a drag and drop functionality to create those rules. It's pretty quick, and not very complicated to do. Plus for those who really want to do it the old way, an extension is very likely to be made.

 

 

Good god, ...When someone is making "Argumentum ad Populum" arguments, I damn well need numbers, because it's very easy for people to claim "EVERYBODY doesn't like that feature", or "NOBODY wants that feature" like you've been doing the entire thread.

I would demand the same evidence from people claiming that "EVERYBODY wants Drag and Drop" and "Nobody likes LOOT", and "NOBODY wants Drag and Drop", and "EVERYBODY wants Loot"

See how easy that is?

 

I am getting very very very very very tired of having to deal with all of your Deflections, that keep derailing and obfuscating the discussion at hand, and dragging it off topic.

 

I'm starting to feel like I'm on Youtube, reading the comment section for a Justin Bieber video FFS.

 

Who is this "WE" you're referring to?

Are you part of the development team, are YOU the spokesman for Vortex?

What part of this thread qualifies you to refer to yourself as "WE"? Other than that you've decided to take up some self-appointed mantle and title, and you have assigned yourself as some gate-keeper that everybody has to go through in order to talk to Tannin?

WHY ARE YOU? AND WHO GAVE YOU THE TITLE YOU SEEM TO THINK YOU HAVE?

 

Good lord

 

STOP IT ALREADY, and let people talk, let people input their suggestions without having you constantly attacking them, we've heard you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again about how everybody elses opinion is terrible and only yours is great.

 

I posted in order to reword what is being discussed in an attempt to add to Arthmoor's post, and then out of the blue, there's your post with all this "WE" stuff in it, talking like you're all of a sudden a self-appointed faction leader for LOOT.

 

People are in this thread to share their opinions, wants, wishes, etc for Vortex, not for you to constantly jump in here like some self-appointed Thread Police and tell people that their opinions are crap because they don't agree with YOUR opinion.