Simple manual load ordering plz

[Tannin42]

Tannin wrote...

 

I'm in the 7+ year range so my input isn't as weighted I guess - but, the above attitude is the #1 reason I will avoid some mods and mod authors. "very small minority" may be larger than you think. Those who have spoken about the issue get shut down and those who read about it don't want to waste their time. If it never came up in focus groups or pre-alpha - then you chose the wrong people to ask. It is coming up in current Alpha versions - which to me means you should consider it.

It came up in the focus group, from most who joined it shortly after they did. All who spoke after giving the feature a chance liked it then.

I can't remember anyone in the focus group saying "I've been using this for two weeks and I'd still prefer to do it manually".

 

Same thing after the public release: There was a lot of talk about this, there was even planning done for an extension that does manual ordering. Afaik it was given up with the explanation it wasn't actually necessary any more.

Yes, there is a lot of complaints about the rule-based sorting but it's almost exclusively from people who have only just started.

If you have experience with rule-based sorting, gave it an honest chance, and still would prefer manual sorting (and it would have to be exclusive, not an imaginary mixed mode that can't actually be implemented) your opinion carries more weight. But you'd still have to convince us, with arguments, that it's the better option.

 

Also, I want to be very clear about one thing: No one is being shut down, we're not standing in the way of an extension that implements manual ordering, we're just saying: We do not have plans to invest our time/money and sacrifice other plans unless you give us good arguments. That's not unreasonable.

 

As I wrote to HadToRegister: We only have limited time and UI space and we have to be economic with it.

Please understand this: Vortex is free for you, it's not free for Nexus Mods. You're asking us to make an investment that is bigger than you think. It's not rude or stubborn of us to ask for good reasons. It's not stubborn of us to find the arguments given so far unconvincing.

[Jebbalon]

With NMM and LOOT (standalone) we have both manual and auto. That's what I think we are talking about here. You install in NMM and you go to LOOT to auto sort then you go back to NMM and Manually adjust plugins as needed. That is what is meant by having both. In Vortex everything is auto sort and when I disable auto sort I don't have manual - it does feel strange. I can set rules to load after and hit sort now but there is also no way to know if something else changed with that sort now function. It's not transparent.

 

Is that something that can be implemented ? After Sorting plugins the display of plugins is highlighted green maybe. If I install another mod and it auto sorts the colors of any mods that changed order including the new mod change to blue-ish This way I can see what moved. You were saying that LOOT doesn't keep track of previous orders but vortex could yes? You'd have to, IDK, timestamp the plugins.txt and compare to current ?? The color change could also include red for missing master or orange for cyclic rules. whatever. just a thought.

 

I do think putting out a clear documentation of the auto sort method is maybe a good idea. There are those that see "No manual ordering!" and will never download. With an explanation handy they can at least learn a little bit. And we can pass on the info as well.

[Tannin42]

You can use loot to give you a starting point and then work manually, but whenever you sort with loot you lose your custom edits, that's what I mean with "you can't mix them". When you go down that route, all the functionality regarding setting your own rules and groups is pointless, because the moment you start manually editing they don't have an effect any more. How confusing would that be, if all your custom rules don't apply any more once you done manual ordering?

Essentially Vortex would have to hide all the rule/group functionality the moment you start manual editing because they would be confusing but that too would be confusing because then we'd have to answer questions like "In a video I saw xyz but it doesn't show/is disabled for me".

NMM doesn't really integrate LOOT, it just allows you to run it, MO is pretty much the same except it has the sort button directly inside the application.

Vortex relies much more on LOOT, not just for auto sorting but also for enforcing stuff like loading master before light masters before regular plugins and so on. Vortex displays meta information from loot (like: plugin requires cleaning or other messages stored with the plugin).

 

Highlighting the changes from the last sort, yes, that is something we should be able to implement. Would be great if you could send in a feedback or post an issue on github directly.

Vortex does know the order before and after sorting, so does LOOT itself afaik. It's just that LOOT doesn't, to my knowledge, make any effort to minimize the number of changes which is why when you add a rule to "plugin a" that doesn't mean only plugin a will be moved. Technically the entire load order could be shuffled every time within the confines of existing rules/groups. Which is also why I'm not sure the highlighting feature will be quite that useful, it could be showing a lot more changes than were necessary.

[Jebbalon]

I will see about posting feedback on github tonight.

 

Another, idea is to expand where we can drag the "Rule line" from just the icon to the whole plugin line. In a sense we drag and drop already, a dialogue pops up and we choose load after. Intuitively dragging the name of plugin down below another would be better - right?

[Grestorn]

The creation of load order rules can be improved a lot, no doubt about that. Especially if the list of plugins is very long, it's extremely hard to define a load order between two plugins, which aren't anywhere close to each other.

[Zanderat]

I have been around TES modding for a loooooong time (more than the magic 8 years cited here..........) I can say literally every time a new better way of doing things is discovered there has been resistance (think of the controversies back in Oblivion days when archive invalidation was finally figured out). Anyway, yes better documentation is key. Because a lot of this is driven by directions given by mod authors (mostly now obsolete) that their particular mod must load last or in a certain order.

 

The limiting factor is that LOOT can sort for compatibility only. If you want a certain mod to "win" for aesthetic reasons and the Cyclic interaction rule doesn't like it, then you are out of luck. So, we need either good clear explanation of what Cyclic interaction actually means or a way to override it (maybe with a pop up warning) or ideally both. LOOT can be improved and perhaps Vortex can be the means to do it.

[Grestorn]

In such cases, a compatibility patch is the better solution anyway. Which combines the changes of the mods in question. Simply overwriting is rarely a good idea, ib either direction.

[Zanderat]

Agreed. But until mod authors update their installation instructions, people will persist that mod ABC.esp must load after mod DEF.esp even that is either wrong or obsolete info and "Vortex won't let me!" So I say either give good clear explanation as to what is happening when a cyclic interaction error happens or allow a manual override (again with warnings) such that even though LOOT has correctly ordered the plugins, plugin ABC.esp is potentially sorted incorrectly.

[Arthmoor]

Sometime you don't listen to your users, either, Arthmoor, and you think you're right. Sometimes I disagree with you, like with your decision to not support VR, even though there are PLENTY of users (like me) willing to help you with that, so you don't need to buy a setup yourself. I thought that was extremely short-sighted and stubborn. But, well, your mods, your decision. Now I'm no longer using your mods (at least those you can live without). I still think it's a shame, but I cannot change your opinion on that. You're not alone with this, the guys from SkyUI have the same attitude and it really pisses me off.

 

Talking about "horse" and "car". ... THERE you have an example of rejecting a new modern technology out of pure stubbornness!

If you're going to go down this road, why not mention that you know, and everyone else knows, VR is on an incompatible branch of code that doesn't support mods to begin with. So everyone "modding" VR is doing so outside of any actual provision for the activity. Which is basically you're taking a car, modifying it, and then expecting people like me who make stock parts to also support them when modified outside their specifications. Not gonna happen in any sane world.

 

So no. That's not a short-sighted decision, and you should accept the reality of it when the SkyUI guys - who know this stuff far better than I do - are telling you the same thing when they declined to support VR.

 

This does not compare in a valid way to manual load order adjustment in any way because that was a conscious decision on the part of the developer to simply never implement it when it's the standard way things have been done for 15+ years in the Bethesda community. Things like mlox, BOSS, and LOOT have always only been considered starting points. Tools to aid you in reaching the final result. Not to be the solution themselves. The authors of each and every one of those tools has said this since the beginning, so it's not THEIR responsibility to change their ways because Vortex has decided to ban cars.

[HadToRegister]

I have been around TES modding for a loooooong time (more than the magic 8 years cited here..........) I can say literally every time a new better way of doing things is discovered there has been resistance (think of the controversies back in Oblivion days when archive invalidation was finally figured out). Anyway, yes better documentation is key. Because a lot of this is driven by directions given by mod authors (mostly now obsolete) that their particular mod must load last or in a certain order.

 

The limiting factor is that LOOT can sort for compatibility only. If you want a certain mod to "win" for aesthetic reasons and the Cyclic interaction rule doesn't like it, then you are out of luck. So, we need either good clear explanation of what Cyclic interaction actually means or a way to override it (maybe with a pop up warning) or ideally both. LOOT can be improved and perhaps Vortex can be the means to do it.

 

That's the problem, the mod I was trying to load after another mod, needed to go AFTER the other mod.

They were both newly installed, yet no matter what I did using the rules, it kept reporting a cyclic interaction between just those two mods yet neither had any rules applied to them, except for the "Load After" rule I added to the "Load After" mod.

That's an instance where a manual drag and drop would've helped.

 

But, I'm done, I've been slapped down enough.