Giving up on Vortex for now

[Tannin42]

I think that the choice of adopting the same method as loot for plugin ordering is a good idea as it could obviously help with the masterlists and most people don't want to bother with the plugin ordering. I also understand that for mod creators and more advanced users a direct way of ordering the plugins via drag and drop is much more immediate and taking into account that this has been offered in basically all previous mod managers available it really feels like a step back for them. I think that adding that option for the people that want it as an extension (disabled by default maybe) is really the best approach here.

Well, since Vortex supports extensions we won't stop anyone from providing an alternative plugin management extension (the current one is an extension itself), we just won't develop or support it.

 

What I'm more concerned about is not plugin ordering but mod ordering instead. The conflict resolution system seems like a step up from the old NMM where only install order mattered, on a theoretical standpoint at least. For a short mod list this way of handling conflicts seems pretty reasonable but I ask myself what of the case of very large mod lists with more than 300 mods, 100-150 of which are texture mods. I for one have 5-6 big texture overhauls and hundreds of smaller more focused replacers. No for each mod the user has now to manually set rules for each conflict? A texture replacer could be adding 30 files and those files could have conflicts with 5 different mods I would have to manually add 5 rules for that mod if I want it to win the conflicts. Then when you have 500 mods with all the rules setup and need to add a mod how are you supposed to remember all the other rules you setup? It really does not seem like something that scales well.

I imported my entire Skyrim installation from MO with ~400 mods. Only maybe a quarter was even involved in any conflicts and most of those were readme.txt and stuff like that. You can solve all conflicts for one mod from one dialog in a few clicks.

Even on a very large install this is a matter of minutes and you don't even have to look at the mods that don't have a conflict. This scales much much better than the old approach.

 

Now MO offered ordering based on sequential positioning of the mods changeable by drag and drop, conflict would be decided instantly with a very clear visual method. The reason for not adopting such a method was because people used the system simply to "group" mods together and organize them. Well with 500 mods they had better be organized.

Yes, I agree, but that's an entirely separate need! If you propose ways of ordering/grouping mods beyond the current categories then I'll be happy to hear them.

But this would then be a purely visual ordering and would be in addition and separate from load order management.

 

Newbies could fail to understand this and just use the mods pane of MO to organize their mods in groups disregarding conflicts (although anyone who watched a tutorial or has a smudge of common sense would realize that the lightning bolts mean something...).

This labels 90% of MO users "newbies" and the percentage is likely going to be worse for Vortex.

What's the point of designing a feature when you already know the vast majority of users are not going to understand it?

 

And that's really the point for both plugin and mod ordering: Yes, the physical act of dragging things around is easy and intuitive but the reasoning behind

it is so complex that very few users actually understand what they are supposed to be doing with it and the overwhelming majority of users are ignorant of their own lack of knowledge.

 

I don't see the rules system to be scalable to hundreds of mods and the sequential ordering is just a very fast, immediate and intuitive way of handling conflicts.

But that's not the case. When you manually order mods/plugins you're ordering one list of hundreds of mods or plugins.

With dependencies you order maybe 10-20 conflict "clusters" of a handful of mods each.

The problem is broken down into several much smaller problems that you can tackle individually, each of which much easier to keep track of.

You don't have to visually order mods into groups by "similarity" in an effort to keep it manageable, Vortex tells you which mods have conflicts and need to be ordered and then you can use visual

ordering just for your viewing pleasure, alphabetically or by categories or by installation time or by which ones require updates.

[Deleted3897072User]

 

Before this thead turns into a mutual incomprehension fest, there is a simple solution for people who want to use Vortex and still do manual load ordering. It doesn't require any software changes at all. Interested?

 

You just launch Vortex and NMM at the same time, use Vortex to do all the installing and enabling, let it do what it likes with the load order, then drag-and-drop the plugins around in the NMM plugins tab. The changes are instant and Vortex updates its plugin window to reflect your changes.

 

Job done.

 

.. or they could drop the no longer supported NMM

 

And use Wrye Bash instead for the same purpose (they are still going to need a Bashed Patch anyway) :tongue:

 

Yes, that's a valid approach too. My point was that Vortex doesn't need to be adapted to support drag-and-drop load ordering, if we have other ways of accomplishing the same thing.

 

As long as NMM goes on working even without being supported, that will be my personal way of doing it. But it also does installing and uninstalling, so for me, if I'm using NMM anyway, I don't actually need to use Vortex alongside it. It doesn't do anything for me that NMM doesn't already do. Which was why I've said in the OP that I'm dropping out of the alpha, to give someone else my slot.

 

This is not a criticism of Vortex as a concept, nor of the way it has been implemented. It's one man's vision of what he wanted to build and, from what I've seen, he has built it very well. It will be deservedly popular with a lot of people but it doesn't have to be 'all things to all men'. It's like when we author mods - we create the mod we want to make and if people use it, great; if they don't, that's okay too. What is not appreciated by us authors is people telling us we should have designed the mod differently to conform to their concept of what it should have been. Asking for Vortex to work a different way, just to suit me and, perhaps, a few other people, wouldn't be fair. So I'm not asking.

[Hilli1]

Thank you for your post, al12rs. Totally agree with you. Since all people speaking about plugin ordering only, it is very helpful that you pointed out, that mod ordering is just as important as plugin ordering. You spoke about large mod lists with 300 mods. Believe it or not, in MO2 I have installed more than 6000 mods with a large number of texture mods (of course active is a part of them only). It is unthinkable to keep an overview without grouping the mods together and a manually adjustment of the install order. In my eyes it is simply impossible to setup large modlists with setting dependencies. Finally I could live without manually reordering of the plugin order but I cannot live without the possibility to manually organize the install order of the mods.

[AL12]

@Tannin42 Thanks for replaying. I'm glad we agree that the modlist view should not be used to order mods. You also make a good point on the fact that the rules system will only consider actual conflicting mods so many mods can actually be ruled out of the equation. But my point still stands regarding the visibility of how conflict are resolved on a big setup. If a person has 500 mods and even only 100 mods that conflict, how can they remember what is winning, how can they easily understand what is actually being loaded? Is the "install order" meant to be the order in which the mods were installed or is it meant to be the "deploy order". If it is the deploy order it does not seem to work correctly for now.
Is the install order meant to be like the "priority" number of MO after the rules took action? If not I would suggest a way of visualizing efficiently and intuitively how conflict are resolved, and the reason for this request is because people want to know what files are being loaded even with 500 mods without having to decifer the rules they set a couple of moths before. The sequential ordering of MO offers this, but I'm sure there the visual problem can be resolved even without it.

[Tannin42]

You can display the "install order" in Vortex and sort by it so you can see what the rules did, you just can't manually change it directly.

And yes, the install order in vortex is the same as priority in MO.

[Hilli1]

@Tannin42 Yes, I know I can display the install order, however all is in disorder and I want them all in a special ordering.
Let's imagine I have 5 texure mods: A, B, C, D, E. However the install order is E-D-C-B-A. How to get them to A-B-C-D-E ? With Vortex I have to set 4 dependencies (load B after A, load C after B, load D after C and load E after D) instead of simply drag and drop the files in the right position. At the next day I download mod BB and I want this mod to have between mod B and C. Then I would have to set the next rule for mod C (load C after BB) and a rule for mod BB (load BB after B). Now imagine you have to handle 1000 mods this way. This is why I said it is impossible to setup a large modlist this way.

[AL12]

@Tannin42 Yes, I know I can display the install order, however all is in disorder and I want them all in a special ordering.

Let's imagine I have 5 texure mods: A, B, C, D, E. However the install order is E-D-C-B-A. How to get them to A-B-C-D-E ? With Vortex I have to set 4 dependencies (load B after A, load C after B, load D after C and load E after D) instead of simply drag and drop the files in the right position. At the next day I download mod BB and I want this mod to have between mod B and C. Then I would have to set the next rule for mod C (load C after BB) and a rule for mod BB (load BB after B). Now imagine you have to handle 1000 mods this way. This is why I said it is impossible to setup a large modlist this way.

Even with all the points Tannin made I must agree that sequential ordering with drag and drop is just way more convenient and immediate if you know what you are doing. I think a lot of people would appreciate this feature very much. I don't believe that only because a feature is too advanced (and really it isn't something that a good explanation would not cover) it should be omitted. I don't mean for it to be the standard or the default way of ordering mods, just an alternative method disabled by default. Just like plugin ordering this is a feature that people that know what they are doing (which is not a low number) could use with great benefits.

The very hard aim of Vortex is to be accessible to new users but please remember not to sacrifice usability and convenience for the people that treat modding much more seriously.

Getting vortex stable is of course more important than any feature request at this moment, but I think that communicating these things is vital to make sure that the feedback and thoughts of the community on the tool are clear so that they may be addressed in due time.

Edited February 2, 2018 by al12rs

[AL12]

On a different note will mod renaming be supported? I did not find a way to rename them even after poking around a bit.

[Tannin42]

@Tannin42 Yes, I know I can display the install order, however all is in disorder and I want them all in a special ordering.

Let's imagine I have 5 texure mods: A, B, C, D, E. However the install order is E-D-C-B-A. How to get them to A-B-C-D-E ? With Vortex I have to set 4 dependencies (load B after A, load C after B, load D after C and load E after D) instead of simply drag and drop the files in the right position. At the next day I download mod BB and I want this mod to have between mod B and C. Then I would have to set the next rule for mod C (load C after BB) and a rule for mod BB (load BB after B). Now imagine you have to handle 1000 mods this way. This is why I said it is impossible to setup a large modlist this way.

 

But this is exactly the reason I removed manual mod ordering! install ordering your texture mods A B C D E without a conflict between them just for organisational purposes is wrong, it's misusing the feature. This is supposed to be painful because it's not what this feature is for. If I could I would make Vortex slap you for every time you do this. It's like complaining your toothbrush is bad for cleaning your floors.

 

If you want to visually order your mods this is a separate feature and we can talk about it separately but this thread is about load ordering, a feature for resolving conflicts and nothing else.

What you want and what you're asking for are not the same thing! You're asking me for free form load ordering so you can do visual ordering with it.

[Tannin42]

On a different note will mod renaming be supported? I did not find a way to rename them even after poking around a bit.

 

You can rename mods. Double click the mod and a sidebar will show up with info about that mod. There you can change the mod name.