Managing the Load Order...

[kamikatze13]

 

Rearranging mods is the single most basic feature of mod management, and I'm actually really shocked that Vortex not having that option is even on the table, much less being doubled down on.

I don't have access to Vortex yet, so I may be talking out my butt, but I've ready every message posted so far and I've yet to see one person show one concrete, real world example where Vortex's method does not work, where Vortex's method is more cumbersome, etc. It's different. Trying to use it the way you used previous managers makes it cumbersome, but using as it is intended should work, with less user effort. Theoretically. Again, I don't have it. I'm just trying to get my head around it. But I don't see one concrete example where it does not work, where drag and drop ordering is needed.

it is more cumbersome and this is empirically verifiable: according to my HCI lectures, if we take a look at it with the help of the keystroke-level model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke-level_model), it'll lose to a lot of other mod managers.

Edited February 3, 2018 by kamikatze13

[simsrw73]

I guess I don't understand where it is more complicated or more cumbersome. You only have to touch mods to create a rule where there is a conflict, right? If there is no conflict, which is for the majority of mods, then there is nothing to do.

[Deleted133263User]

Loot is fine and all but there are mods that conflict with each other and some people may want a specific one to override the other in the conflicts for X reason(s). Using priorities instead of drag and move complicates things more not simplifies them.

So just use the simple Load After instead of Priorities. LOOT imho is brilliant ..

 

Mod Authors could make far more use of it than they currently do, and just submit a technical argument with good logical reasoning as to why their mod should go in a certain place or after a certain plugin .. In the LOOT development thread. If it is a valid case then the positioning will be permanently added by the team to the masterlist, and LOOT forever after would do the correcting for you.

 

LOOT will generally put a mod with the most amount of record changes out of all plugins first because to do it the other way around makes it win over all other smaller mods just changing one of those records in conflict. The idea being if the smaller ones load later, they win, if the user wants the bigger mod to win in that case .. remove the smaller mod.

 

It has a lot of considerations, all of which can be overridden by the masterlist and mod authors explaining a good enough reason as to why technically their mod should be on the list and made to load in specific ways.

 

If mod authors dont talk to the LOOT team, nothing gets done. So then it is left to users of the mod to either suggest it, or use meta data Priorities or Load after.

Before LOOT came along, BOSS was the tool of choice for Load Ordering, and had a well developed masterlist with thousands of common mod ordering mistakes corrected .. Because authors and more expert users of the mods used to talk to the tool makers.

 

 

Or .. Maybe they could include Bash Tags in their mods header, to get Bash to carry forward any important records into the Bashed Patch every time it is rebuilt, so that smaller mods with more than just a few records can be trumped by selective Bash Tag additions. Admittedly Patchers need further development for newer games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, but they will be coming (when Utumno gets his head around doing them after all the refactoring he has been doing), maybe suggestions to the development team would ensure a particular patcher requirements are noted as needed for a particular game.

 

Screenshot - Bash Tags in the header of the Unofficial Oblivion Patch

Screenshot - User chooses here whether to leave the Bash Tag ticked for UOP or not

Bashed Patch loads last, and Bash Tag included records in the Rebuild of the bashed patch win.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Guest

[kamikatze13]

a little OT, but - wasn't LOOT envisioned to work without a masterlist and as an alternative to BOSS?

[Deleted133263User]

Another thing I just remembered which has not been mentioned with regard to Load Orders :

 

Once you start a long term playthrough - You should not change your load order.

 

I think a lot of people are a bit devil may care with this, or more than likely do not even know, but with the newer generation of Bethesda games (Skyrim LE, Skyrim SE and Fallout 4), aswell as having to keep mods plugins installed that your savegame becomes dependant upon, you should really keep the same Load Order for your entire playthrough aswell, and only change it if you are going to start again.

 

I was not aware of this until I started trying out different Combat mods, CrushBoss during lots of trial and error with many users of his mods enlightened me that an issue I had with Bears going into crucifix mode was due to load order changing mid play through, that was just a fairly harmless issue which would sort itself with time and a cell reset of the area, but there were apparently more issues which could have long term impact and were unsolvable.

 

Vortex enforcing a stable Load Order for the majority of people is going to be a good thing.

 

People will no doubt still experiment with new mods, throwing them in and out of the Load Order and rearranging the Load Order as necessary, but if they actually want to do a stable playthrough, tweaking the Load Order and content should cease for the duration of the playthrough, keeping those ongoing gamesaves stable reload after reload.

[Deleted133263User]

a little OT, but - wasn't LOOT envisioned to work without a masterlist and as an alternative to BOSS?

 

Read these first couple of FAQs https://loot.github.io/docs/help/LOOT-FAQs.html#unrecognised-plugins

 

LOOT has always had a masterlist all through its development, I personally helped test just about every minor development version update from the start of the project.

 

An overview of what LOOT does when you click "Sort" is here https://loot-api.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api/sorting.html

 

Its not an alternative to BOSS, it supercedes BOSS with much better abilities and a sort of AI, BOSS was always dumb and could not read the records inside individual plugins.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Guest

[Robbie922004]

Another thing I just remembered which has not been mentioned with regard to Load Orders :

 

Once you start a long term playthrough - You should not change your load order.

 

I think a lot of people are a bit devil may care with this, or more than likely do not even know, but with the newer generation of Bethesda games (Skyrim LE, Skyrim SE and Fallout 4), aswell as having to keep mods plugins installed that your savegame becomes dependant upon, you should really keep the same Load Order for your entire playthrough aswell, and only change it if you are going to start again.

 

I was not aware of this until I started trying out different Combat mods, CrushBoss during lots of trial and error with many users of his mods enlightened me that an issue I had with Bears going into crucifix mode was due to load order changing mid play through, that was just a fairly harmless issue which would sort itself with time and a cell reset of the area, but there were apparently more issues which could have long term impact and were unsolvable.

 

Vortex enforcing a stable Load Order for the majority of people is going to be a good thing.

 

People will no doubt still experiment with new mods, throwing them in and out of the Load Order and rearranging the Load Order as necessary, but if they actually want to do a stable playthrough, tweaking the Load Order and content should cease for the duration of the playthrough, keeping those ongoing gamesaves stable reload after reload.

Changing load order mid-playthrough doesn't really matter unless you move something into a place where it conflicts with something else, and even then it should be fine once you put it back. Adding mods to current games is perfectly safe unless otherwise stated by the author, just like it's fine to buy the official DLCs mid-playthrough. Removing mods is what causes issues, not adding them or shuffling them around.

 

The thing is that Vortex doesn't enforce a stable load order. I can still change my load order mid-game or otherwise using Vortex, and it doesn't prevent me from breaking my game. It just makes it more of a hassle to change my load order.

[kanisiba]

Tannin's attitude was enough to let me uninstall. Vortex will never ameliorate because of developer's stubbornness. Even if everyone says "Please add manual load order handling", he will reject it.

[HalfLazy]

When 'some users' has become 'Everyone'?

 

Ahn.. just to be brief (because I don't give a damn to start another X page topic about this):

Tannin it's tinking on Vortex for like one year of work time, you for 5 days of free time, maybe... maybe... MAYBE... he has it's reasons.

Then, after all, Tannin could be worng yes, It's possible, but, considering his background, maybe giving him the benefit of the doubt?

 

Just saying...

 

Spoiler alert:

Vortex has manual sorting (I just fixed an incorrect placement)

[MarchinBunny]

Tannin's attitude was enough to let me uninstall. Vortex will never ameliorate because of developer's stubbornness. Even if everyone says "Please add manual load order handling", he will reject it.

I think his "attitude" is to be expected when a bunch of ungrateful people come along and start hating on something they barely even gave a chance. Especially when most have not been able to even give a reasonable reason as to why they have an issue with this. Oh and btw you absolutely can manually sort mods, it's just using a different method to do so. One that will be better for everyone in the long run.