Ideas how to resolve the manual load order/forced loot/meta rules problem

[kamikatze13]

Summarizing my points:

Integrating loot is a great idea and will make life easier for a lot of end users.

The rules system is a good system, it will help improve Loot and you can do everything with it.

But it is not convenient for creator or advanced users that need to move around stuff and rappresent an ulterior abstraction to what is actually being handled, which is a sequential list of plugins.

 

What people would like to hear is that Vortex will allow in future for drag and drop plugin ordering as a secondary (or even hidden) option.

This way new or casual users will be satisfied with the easy auto ordering, more advanced users can fully utilize the rules system to resolve their conflicts and even more advanced users and creators don't have to sacrifice convenience or ease of use. Everybody would then be happy. I know this means more work but since people won't shut up about it I hope it will be considered.

 

 

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/533/710/7ac.jpg

 

and if it's not our beloved mod organizer dev, the moment the api documentation is out, some dood in the community will write a plugin which enables just that and gets a free ticket to the `file of the month`.

 

/thread basically?

[azraal]

While the concept is good the issue comes from the ease of use.

With only a few mods it's ok, but when the amount comes near the mod limit, it becomes harder to set and manage with all the rules.

Especially when you start to get into debuging your load order...

And no mater what it will happen.

 

1) What MO did was insufficient, true. You could only set a mod after another. I want this mod after this one which is after this one etc. until we reach the main mod. It was good for quickly adjusting your load order. It was a kind of light rule that could be broken easily especially good for placing a bunch of unrelated mod in a coherent order but nothing more maybe two would have them would overlap without issue and would be a matter of preference.

 

2) The hard rules in vortex are definitely useful but most of them can be defined automatically by reading the mods header and there where a few mods which needed a light dependency or simply unrelated mod that that would have to be set manually. This could even be added to the fomod specification to optionally add those rules at installation. (and it would help remove the usual "did you check your load order?" which is usually one of the most common cause of user complaints)

 

In the end the hard rules (2) should be used only when it's a necessity to avoid ctd or for the functionality to work correctly.

As for the light rules (1) it should be a matter of drag and drop for the sake of user friendliness.

 

Doing like that would also permit you test a load order and then adding the rules you feel necessary.

 

In term of UI, dragging by the icon is an hard rule, the mechanics doesn't change and you go through all the screen like now. Dragging by the title would allow to fine tune your load order without hassle when there is no hard requirement.

It would be the best of both world and would make it a lot easier to manage.

 

Now that's just my take on how al12rs ideas *could* be tackled.

[duckyduckyquackquack]

Well you missed that sometimes after dragging and dropping the link from A.esp to C.esp and stating to load A after C that Vortex may decide to move C.esp and A.esp in the load order and now they both load before B.esp which is not what you wanted. Even worse in attempts to sort my load order Iâve noticed instances where Vortex will move mods F.esp, L.esp and N.esp will be moved which I wasnât even looking at or wanting to do anything with and arenât even related to the four mods weâre trying to sort the order for. This to me just seems like a dangerous sorting system that could screw things up big time.

[PoorlyAged]

Here is the issue for me.

 

I am OK with the default order. It isn't necessarily what I would do; but it works so why eff with it.

 

However, I have a mod of my very own I need to test. When I activate my mod, the load order is set to.

 

mymod.esp

a.esp

b.esp

c.esp

d.esp

 

But what I want the Load Order to be is:

 

a.esp

b.esp

c.esp

d.esp

mymod.esp

 

So I move my mod to after d.esp and set the rule that my mod must be after d.esp.

 

What I got was:

 

d.esp

mymod.esp

a.esp

b.esp

c.esp

 

< insert that annoying 'wrong answer' buzzer here > It moved d.esp BEFORE mymod.esp. That is NOT what I asked for and certainly not what the rule stated.

 

After a iterative process of moving d.esp, c.esp, and b.esp after c.esp, b.esp and a.esp respectively and adding a rule, I eventually get the load order I expected in the first place.

 

This cannot be fixed. It is a inherent design flaw that can only be remedied by going back to the design board and rethinking how load orders should be managed.

[HadToRegister]

I want a VISUAL preresentation of the load order.

Currently my mod list LOOKS Like this

 

A

B

C
D

E

But according to the rules, loads like this

D

E

C

A
B

 

Why can' they just visually LOOK like that instead of A B C D E?

[HardwareSc8]

Best guess, you don't have the "Load Order" column set as your sort on the Plugins tab.

[HadToRegister]

Best guess, you don't have the "Load Order" column set as your sort on the Plugins tab.

 

If I could get to the plugins tab without CTDing, I'd use it.

 

However, for me, Vortex is rendered completely useless because it crashes with Oblivion and Fallout 3 on the plugins tab currently.

So my testing of Vortex has come to a screeching halt, as I was trying to get DarNified UIF3 to work, but the plugins, according to WryeFlash, keep disabling themselves, and I can't manage them with Vortex.

[Tannin42]

This cannot be fixed. It is a inherent design flaw that can only be remedied by going back to the design board and rethinking how load orders should be managed.

Yes it can be fixed. Easily. With the tools available.

Just set a high global priority for your own mod.

[PoorlyAged]

Here is the issue for me.

 

I am OK with the default order. It isn't necessarily what I would do; but it works so why eff with it.

 

However, I have a mod of my very own I need to test. When I activate my mod, the load order is set to.

 

mymod.esp

a.esp

b.esp

c.esp

d.esp

 

But what I want the Load Order to be is:

 

a.esp

b.esp

c.esp

d.esp

mymod.esp

 

So I move my mod to after d.esp and set the rule that my mod must be after d.esp.

 

What I got was:

 

d.esp

mymod.esp

a.esp

b.esp

c.esp

 

< insert that annoying 'wrong answer' buzzer here > It moved d.esp BEFORE mymod.esp. That is NOT what I asked for and certainly not what the rule stated.

 

After a iterative process of moving d.esp, c.esp, and b.esp after c.esp, b.esp and a.esp respectively and adding a rule, I eventually get the load order I expected in the first place.

 

This cannot be fixed. It is a inherent design flaw that can only be remedied by going back to the design board and rethinking how load orders should be managed.

 

 

 

This cannot be fixed. It is a inherent design flaw that can only be remedied by going back to the design board and rethinking how load orders should be managed.

Yes it can be fixed. Easily. With the tools available.

Just set a high global priority for your own mod.

 

 

First, you do us all a disservice when you take a comment out of context and then reply to what you wanted the post so say.

 

Second, there is a severe design flaw somewhere when the rule says put mod X after mod Y and mod Y is the one that winds up being moved to a position BEFORE mod X. Any statement or protestation to the contrary is a self serving delusion.

 

Third, the necessity to supply a secondary tool to overcome the original design shortcoming simply reinforces my original conclusion. It cannot be fixed.

 

Finally, you are so wedded to your flawed solution that you cannot or will not see past it. There are other solutions which meet the criteria of allowing users to adjust their load order. NMM has one. Bethesda has one. Of the three, only yours is cumbersome to use and makes the process more difficult, does not work as promised and requires a secondary tool set to overcome the shortcomings of the original design and implementation.

 

It has already been stated that NMM is sunset and will eventually be dropped for your solution. I am not a fan of Bethesda or their proprietary implementations but given the state of your current load order management tool, I for one will opt to use Behtesda's Mod Ordering facility to set my load order. That one at least works as advertised.

 

[DarkDominion]

What strikes me the most is that Vortex has been developed, but it is NOTHING without LOOT.
What would Vortex be without LOOT? Just a program to install mods into your data folder with some overwrite options. It heavily leans on LOOT for load order...
If the rule set in LOOT is mistaken, we ALL end up with a messed up load order.
By giving us ALSO a way to sort manually ( drag/drop ) we are able to work around the flaws in LOOT because yeah, LOOT is not perfect.... and still it's a major asset in Vortex