Simple manual load ordering plz

[HeyYou]

Did anybody ever suggested to Tannin to include rule-based ordering back when MO2 was created ? I do not think so.

 

Conclusion : now, we do have a rule-based ordering in Vortex, which is something not one expected ever and it is working like a charm. So I guess that unless somebody out there proves that dragging and dropping is way better than rule-based ordering, we will continue with what we have.

 

I am not missing dragging and dropping at all !

Better? No, not really. More convenient for quick changes to simply test an alternate load order? For those that are used to drag and drop, yes, it is more convenient.

 

It doesn't need to be a 'permanent' change. Vortex would just leave that particular mod where it's at, until the next time auto-sort was requested.

[Arthmoor]

 

So he's petty, and yet YOU respond this way? Uh huh. Deleting his posts because his valid argument rubs you wrong strikes me as the essence of pettiness. Subtly threatening to ban him over it is even more petty.

Subtly threatening to ban him? Bless. Oh Arthmoor, you really are the "essence of pettiness" :laugh: Nowhere did I do that.

 

You keep doing you, old chum! :laugh:

 

Gee, now where have I heard argument methods like this before..... oh right. 2nd grade!

 

That's simply a lie, I've replied to that at least three times, you just choose to ignore my reply - probably because you know full well that I'm right.

Oh boy. No. It's not a lie. I certainly did not ignore it, and it's definitely not because you think you're right. It's quite obvious at this point you think you are, and that your position on this is unassailable.

 

The decision to go with rule-based ordering in Vortex was because of working on MO for years and getting the user feedback, not despite it.

I very seriously doubt this is the case at all since it's a core feature of every mod manager in existence EXCEPT for Vortex and I've never once heard anyone argue for its removal elsewhere. That's a fantasy you invented to bolster your predetermined decision.

 

And this is polemic bs. I never said direct load ordering is wrong, I'm saying we can do better.

No, it's not. By insisting that rules bases load ordering is better, you are quite literally saying everyone's been doing it wrong for 15 years. Yet you don't seem to be able to explain in detail why this is the case, just that "Vortex does it better" even though the LOOT team themselves will tell you flat out that relying only on it is not the way things are supposed to work.

 

I have considered the pros and cons of direct vs rule-based load ordering for a long time, way before I even joined Nexus Mods and yes, this obviously gives me a strong opinion on it.

And yet despite this claim you never once acted on it in MO. That does make one curious as to why. Especially since you so strongly believe manual load ordering is the wrong way to do things.

 

But I also never made a secret out of the fact that I wouldn't change this unless a really good argument were brought forward that I didn't consider before.

 

I'm pretty sure I had a mod installed once that would remember a set of items (instances) based on their form ids, probably using skse and if you changed its load order position it would reset and everything was gone, but that was a single case in all the time I've been modding the game.

That would be a sign of someone going a very long distance out of their way to do something oddly specific. Purposefully designing a mod that requires you never change your load order just seems all kinds of dumb.

 

Honestly, at this point, I don't know why either of us is bothering with this. You won't change your mind despite numerous perfectly valid arguments, and I'm not going to be using Vortex as long as this core feature is missing from the program. So I'd say we're at impasse.

[Grestorn]

Well, it's quite hard for me to keep quiet in this discussion. While reading this, I sit here and keep wondering what makes people write stuff like this.

 

Let's just say that my previous, granted only superficial impression I had on some people, has only been quite solidified. It's quite unfortunate that quite frequently, it's especially the most creative and productive people, that sometimes also have the most difficult personalities. There are countless examples of that in history. And this thread is another proof of that.

 

Sorry for this off-topic rant. Just had to get it off my chest.

[Tannin42]

Oh boy. No. It's not a lie. I certainly did not ignore it, and it's definitely not because you think you're right. It's quite obvious at this point you think you are, and that your position on this is unassailable.

 

Yes you did, you never replied or even acknowledged it - that's what they call "ignoring".

 

I very seriously doubt this is the case at all since it's a core feature of every mod manager in existence EXCEPT for Vortex and I've never once heard anyone argue for its removal elsewhere. That's a fantasy you invented to bolster your predetermined decision.

Again, you ignore what's been said and put things in my mouth so you can then act outraged over your own fabrication.

I didn't say people requested rule-based ordering, I said my own experience working on MO and getting the feedback of confused users led me to the decision, not user requests.

 

No, it's not. By insisting that rules bases load ordering is better, you are quite literally saying everyone's been doing it wrong for 15 years.

Yes it is. Are you seriously suggesting that every improvement made means that everything that was done before was wrong?

This may actually take the price for the stupidest argument on this 20 page threads - congratulations I guess?

 

So when I say "a car is better to get from a to b than a horse" that means people in the past using horses to get around were wrong, because they should have just used a car - 500 years ago?

And saying that an Intel i7-8700 is faster than a 80386 means everyone who used that processor 30 years ago was wrong?

 

LOOT (or BOSS) didn't even have an API when NMM, Wrye Bash and MO were initially developed and LOOT has been improved over time, obviously the fact that it is the superior solution today doesn't mean it has been over the entire course of gamebryo modding history.

 

Yet you don't seem to be able to explain in detail why this is the case

I did. At length. It's just that you, as usual, ignore everything that may contradict your own opinion.

 

just that "Vortex does it better" even though the LOOT team themselves will tell you flat out that relying only on it is not the way things are supposed to work.

I got to tell you that I don't particularly appreciate you putting words into my mouth and I'm sure neither does the LOOT team.

If they had something to tell me, they could do it themselves, people don't need you to spread their opinion.

 

And yet despite this claim you never once acted on it in MO. That does make one curious as to why.

a) because MO was from the beginning aimed at experienced users exclusively. I hope I don't have to explain that the target audience is important when designing software. Vortex tries to be the best choice for beginners as well, that was never a primary goal for MO.

b) because MO had an established user base, established guides and tutorials. Adding a massive change like this would not just have changed how users use the tool it would have invalidated all the work others have done to explain it. It would probably have made MO incompatible with the STEP guide which made it popular in the first place and would probably have caused the community to split.

c) because I simply didn't have enough time to rewrite it.

d) because LOOT has improved over time, as has my trust in it increased. I didn't wake up one day and go "Eureka" about this

 

(just for reference: That's how you make "numerous arguments": You have multiple that are actually different from one another)

 

Especially since you so strongly believe manual load ordering is the wrong way to do things.

You have got to be kidding...

You know what? You accuse Dark0ne of using argument methods like a 2nd grader - even if that was true (which it's not) he would still be arguing at least 3 grades more reasonable than you.

 

You won't change your mind despite numerous perfectly valid arguments

Except there aren't.

There are two arguments so far:

- "It's always been this way"

- "We're going to annoy you until we get what we want."

 

Neither of them are good arguments. That's why I'm bothering with this, I'm still waiting to hear what you think is a good argument...

[Dark0ne]

Gee, now where have I heard argument methods like this before..... oh right. 2nd grade!

 

 

An upgrade from 1st grade, where you point fingers at people and make things up, eh! Brilliant.

 

We've all been there, where someone has misconstrued something someone else has said on the internet. I won't hold it against you.

[Rattledagger]

 

:

I very seriously doubt this is the case at all since it's a core feature of every mod manager in existence EXCEPT for Vortex and I've never once heard anyone argue for its removal elsewhere.

 

Unless a feature is severely broken or need major upgrades to fix I see no good reason to remove any feature already present in a mod manager. Adding a new feature to a mod manager that have never had this feature and where the mod manager already includes an alternative method that gives the same end-result is on the other hand less likely to happen.

 

No, it's not. By insisting that rules bases load ordering is better, you are quite literally saying everyone's been doing it wrong for 15 years.

 

Since I bought Morrowind and Oblivion after Skyrim I've not got 15+ years experience with TES, but I do remember adding mods to DOOM1/2 back in the DOS-days and if not completely mis-remembers using Weidu-mods for Baldurs Gate 2.

 

Now I've not done much Morrowind-modding and neither for Oblivion, but I've still seen more than one Oblivion-mod that explicitly mentions "use BOSS" and at least my understanding BOSS and LOOT uses some master-list-rules to ensure these mods are correctly placed relative to each-other. A quick look indicates BOSS has been present since 2008 at least (and maybe even longer).

 

Meaning, for 10 years rules has been part of the recommended Oblivion plugin load-ordering.

 

So, after BOSS has handled a fraction of the plugins for Obliviion, or LOOT has handled a fraction of the plugins for Skyrim, where are N plugins left to handle. These N plugins can either be handled manually or you can create some extra load-order rules.

 

Adding custom rules has these weaknesses:

1: No idea how easy this is in BOSS.

2: Creating "load after..." rules are time-consuming and in some instances you'll need very many rules.

3: Creating cycles is very easy.

4: Solving cycles are time-consuming.

5: No visualisation of load-order until after sorted.

6: Creating rules can have unexpected effects on other mods.

 

For 2, using Groups is often more effective.

 

As a comparison, drag-and-drop of a single plugin is a fast operation and since you do have immediate visualisation it's easy to put it in the "correct" location. Continue doing this with any other plugins is also easy. But, hang on, I did run BOSS/LOOT for so starting to drag-and-drop plugins and this immediately gives this problem:

7: Where are no visualisation of which plugins are already BOSS/LOOT sorted and which are part of the N remaining unsorted plugins. Meaning, it's possible you drag-and-dropped a plugin and putting it in a location in violation of the BOSS/LOOT-rules.

8: Re-running BOSS/LOOT can move plugins around and you'll have to repeat drag-and-drop to get the desired result.

9: If you some hours/days/weeks/months later adds more plugins you'll need to drag-and-drop the same plugins that "must" be loaded last to the bottom of the load-order again.

 

Due to 7, unless the last thing you did was to run BOSS/LOOT your manually drag-and-dropped list can violate the master-list and while this possibly doesn't matter in your particular case I would expect in many instance this can be a problem.

 

As for Vortex, some advantages are:

10: You're guaranteed the master-list rules are always fulfilled.

11: After adding rules and/or putting plugins into different Groups Vortex remembers this for you, meaning you will never need to repeat this for the same plugins again even if you start on a blank profile.

12: After putting a plugin that "must" be loaded last into the last Group, this plugin will keep being loaded last regardless of you adding more plugins.

 

tl;dr:

Both Vortex and drag-and-drop can give the same end-result with a valid plugin load-order. In Vortex you're guaranteed to not violate master-list rules. If you're only ever going to move a particular plugin once using drag-and-drop is likely faster. If on the other hand you expect the same plugin must be moved multiple times using Groups/Rules has the advantage.

 

Example, let's say you need to move plugin A to after plugin B and you uses 10 seconds to drag-and-drop A after B. Alternatively putting plugin A into another Group so A is loaded after B you uses 15 seconds. If you ever need to drag-and-drop A after B more than once using Group has the advantage.

 

 

I'm not going to be using Vortex as long as this core feature is missing from the program.

 

To me a core feature is to create a valid load-order and I've managed to do this with MO, NMM, Vortex, Wrye Bash and the Skyrim launcher.

[sopmac45]

 

Did anybody ever suggested to Tannin to include rule-based ordering back when MO2 was created ? I do not think so.

 

Conclusion : now, we do have a rule-based ordering in Vortex, which is something not one expected ever and it is working like a charm. So I guess that unless somebody out there proves that dragging and dropping is way better than rule-based ordering, we will continue with what we have.

 

I am not missing dragging and dropping at all !

Better? No, not really. More convenient for quick changes to simply test an alternate load order? For those that are used to drag and drop, yes, it is more convenient.

 

It doesn't need to be a 'permanent' change. Vortex would just leave that particular mod where it's at, until the next time auto-sort was requested.

 

 

 

More convenient ? Yes, I do agree with you 100% and I have used drag and drop for the last 2 years before jumping to Vortex so I am familiar with it.

 

However, Vortex without dragging and dropping has been more convenient for me and I am not saying this to back up Tannin or go against the rest, I say it based in my own personal experience and believe me when I said that it took me a while to digest Vortex without the dragging and dropping feature, and finally, Vortex has proved to me it is simpler, faster and more reliable than NMM ( I cannot say anything about MO because I've never used it ).

 

Anybody here can come up and speaks to me with technical language and leave me like an idiot ... I am not a master tech in computers or programming at all, but I can see and feel the difference between the so-desired-dragging-and-dropping and the rule-based ordering. The latter is working super very well for both of my games.

 

There are only 2 things I need to do : setup my rules and place my patches in the Patching Group. Start playing my game and forget. So far so good. Why should I miss dragging and dropping then ? Why would I need it ?

[HeyYou]

 

 

Did anybody ever suggested to Tannin to include rule-based ordering back when MO2 was created ? I do not think so.

 

Conclusion : now, we do have a rule-based ordering in Vortex, which is something not one expected ever and it is working like a charm. So I guess that unless somebody out there proves that dragging and dropping is way better than rule-based ordering, we will continue with what we have.

 

I am not missing dragging and dropping at all !

Better? No, not really. More convenient for quick changes to simply test an alternate load order? For those that are used to drag and drop, yes, it is more convenient.

 

It doesn't need to be a 'permanent' change. Vortex would just leave that particular mod where it's at, until the next time auto-sort was requested.

 

 

 

More convenient ? Yes, I do agree with you 100% and I have used drag and drop for the last 2 years before jumping to Vortex so I am familiar with it.

 

However, Vortex without dragging and dropping has been more convenient for me and I am not saying this to back up Tannin or go against the rest, I say it based in my own personal experience and believe me when I said that it took me a while to digest Vortex without the dragging and dropping feature, and finally, Vortex has proved to me it is simpler, faster and more reliable than NMM ( I cannot say anything about MO because I've never used it ).

 

Anybody here can come up and speaks to me with technical language and leave me like an idiot ... I am not a master tech in computers or programming at all, but I can see and feel the difference between the so-desired-dragging-and-dropping and the rule-based ordering. The latter is working super very well for both of my games.

 

There are only 2 things I need to do : setup my rules and place my patches in the Patching Group. Start playing my game and forget. So far so good. Why should I miss dragging and dropping then ? Why would I need it ?

 

Yes, set up your rules. There's the rub. How do you know which rules you need to set up? By trying some out, and seeing if it works the way you want it to? That is exactly what I want to be able to do by simply dragging one mod to a new position, and test to see if it works there. Sure, I could 'set a rule' that should put it in the correct spot, but, then we have the example from previously in this thread, where a member specified a mod to load after another one, and instead of moving the mod in question, vortex moved the OTHER mod before the mod he was playin' with. (the logic behind that method simply escapes me.)

 

I would really love to be able to test a mod in X position, and if it works, THEN figure out a rule to keep it there. We end up in the same place, just a slightly different method. Different strokes for different folks.

 

 

While LOOT is able to calculate correct load order positions for the vast majority of plugins using only their content, it cannot do so for all plugins. As such, LOOT provides a mechanism for supplying additional plugin metadata so that it may sort them correctly. An online masterlist is provided to supply metadata for many plugins that need it, while users can make their own metadata additions, which are saved in their userlist.

LOOT is intended to make using mods easier, and mod users should still possess a working knowledge of mod load ordering. See Introduction To Load Orders for an overview.

 

There is a direct quote from the Loot Readme file. It is not a be-all, end-all solution. There are cases where users are required to intervene. Sure, it's DAMN good, but, not 100%.

 

 

Vortex tries to be the best choice for beginners as well, that was never a primary goal for MO.

 

So you write software for the lowest common denominator, but, leave out features advanced users want.

[Zanderat]

I have evolved my thoughts on this. To me, drag and drop is a complete non-issue. The rules are working fro me. But if I did want to drag and drop, all would I need to do is turn off auto-sorting and do my drag and drop in WB. Vortex won't mess with your LO, as long as auto-sort is off.

[Grestorn]

 

Yes, set up your rules. There's the rub. How do you know which rules you need to set up? By trying some out, and seeing if it works the way you want it to?

 

 

In general there's little need to try and error. There aren't so many mods that are conflicting. And as I'm always saying, if two mods are conflicting and there's no compatibility patch out there, the best course of action is to merge them or to create a patch yourself.

 

As a matter of fact, in those (rare) cases, the load order suggested by LOOT and its master list (i.e. the community!) is most likely the best one anyway.

 

You make it sound like it would be necessary to swap mods up and down all the time. But that's just not the case.