Why Is Mod Conflict Resolution Such A Pain?

[Seraffian]

i'll ask you this;

 

what is a mod conflict?

 

write down what you believe a mod conflict is and we'll go from there.

 

(I'm gonna assume you're trying to help and not make me look stupid. Plain text makes it hard to catch the "tone" of your voice, you know :) )

 

The way I understand it, a mod conflict occurs when two (or more?) mods are trying to edit/change the same file(s). I know in NMM at least (not sure about MO2) you had to install the conflicting mods in the right order, having the latter overwrite the former - in which case I just did whatever the mod page told me to and hoped for the best! :)

[Guest deleted34304850]

thats it exactly.

you may have mod a that contains scripts or images or whatever and mod b is maybe a patch to mod a - so mod b has an update of a file in mod a.

the conflict here is mod b wants to update (overwrite) a file in mod a.

 

now a mod manager is a good thing, but it wont make a decision about a conflict because, well, its a mod manager not a mod chaos creator. so what happens is, with nmm you get a pop up asking you what to do with the fact that mod b wants to make a change to a file that mod a installed. you would reply to overwrite, or not and stuff would happen.

well vortex is doing exactly the same. its telling you there is a conflict and its asking you what to do with it.

 

here's the fun bit.

 

with nmm, you would say yeah go on overwrite the change and nmm would do that for you. so the file that mod a brought to your system has been overwritten by the file in mod b. all is good.

let's say that time passes and you remove mod b, for some reason. you tell nmm to disable and remove mod b and it does it and you're golden.

then you fire up your game, play a bit and BOOM you get a CTD out of nowhere because the file that mod a installed that was then updated by mod b is now missing. But that's impossible because mod a is still installed....well yes it is, but it's not 100% installed, because now a file is missing.

 

It takes you ages to figure this out and - going on previous posts seen in these forums, you may have done any/all of the following;

1. reinstalled windows

2. bought an entire new pc

3. bought a new house to put your new pc in

4. reinstalled all your games

5. reinstalled all your mods

6. blamed vortex for everything from trump to brexit

 

 

vortex does exactly the same as nmm - it says hey you have a conflict here, what do you want me to do - you tell it to install mod b as you did with nmm and all is good.

time passes and you uninstall mod b.

 

vortex, being the ginger stepchild of mod managers uninstalls mod b from your system, but then, cunningly - re-installs the single file that mod b updated, so mod a is still present in your system, but no files are missing no CTD's the world is a happy place (apart from trump and brexit).

 

so in a nutshell that is how vortex handles mod conflicts. it is entirely the same process as nmm, but comes with shiny new bells and whistles.

 

what makes it even better - because it uses hardlink deployments - your game folders aren't touched.

 

hardlink deployments - conceptually similar (but not exactly the same) as shortcuts.

 

imagine you have a file in my documents, and you make a shortcut to it on the desktop. click the shortcut, your file opens. if you delete the shortcut from your desktop your file is perfectly safe. re-create the shortcut, there it is - you're totally messing with the shortcut but the actual file itself remains in place in my documents.

 

when you deploy mods in vortex, it will put links to your mods into your game directory. when you purge mods in vortex it simply removes those links. the end result - your game folders are still intact and all is good, but the links to the mods are removed.

 

so, with vortex, you can download and deploy any mods you like - deploy them - fire up your game - like the mod? keep it. hate the mod? shutdown the game, purge it from vortex, fire up your game - you're back to how you were, and there's no loose files, no missing files, no cruft, no problems.

 

Sing Hosanas for Vortex and how it handles mod conflicts and how it handles deploy/purge operations.

 

In a nutshell, and at a very high level, this is what Vortex is doing for you.

 

Any other questions, or anything else you're not clear on? I'm here all week - and yes - I'm trying to help you, because your post was intelligent and polite and looked like a genuine attempt to learn something. Unlike many other tools who pollute these forums with their snowflake posts that are never their problem. :)

[Seraffian]

thats it exactly.

you may have mod a that contains scripts or images or whatever and mod b is maybe a patch to mod a - so mod b has an update of a file in mod a.

the conflict here is mod b wants to update (overwrite) a file in mod a.

 

now a mod manager is a good thing, but it wont make a decision about a conflict because, well, its a mod manager not a mod chaos creator. so what happens is, with nmm you get a pop up asking you what to do with the fact that mod b wants to make a change to a file that mod a installed. you would reply to overwrite, or not and stuff would happen.

well vortex is doing exactly the same. its telling you there is a conflict and its asking you what to do with it.

 

here's the fun bit.

 

with nmm, you would say yeah go on overwrite the change and nmm would do that for you. so the file that mod a brought to your system has been overwritten by the file in mod b. all is good.

let's say that time passes and you remove mod b, for some reason. you tell nmm to disable and remove mod b and it does it and you're golden.

then you fire up your game, play a bit and BOOM you get a CTD out of nowhere because the file that mod a installed that was then updated by mod b is now missing. But that's impossible because mod a is still installed....well yes it is, but it's not 100% installed, because now a file is missing.

 

It takes you ages to figure this out and - going on previous posts seen in these forums, you may have done any/all of the following;

1. reinstalled windows

2. bought an entire new pc

3. bought a new house to put your new pc in

4. reinstalled all your games

5. reinstalled all your mods

6. blamed vortex for everything from trump to brexit

 

 

vortex does exactly the same as nmm - it says hey you have a conflict here, what do you want me to do - you tell it to install mod b as you did with nmm and all is good.

time passes and you uninstall mod b.

 

vortex, being the ginger stepchild of mod managers uninstalls mod b from your system, but then, cunningly - re-installs the single file that mod b updated, so mod a is still present in your system, but no files are missing no CTD's the world is a happy place (apart from trump and brexit).

 

so in a nutshell that is how vortex handles mod conflicts. it is entirely the same process as nmm, but comes with shiny new bells and whistles.

 

what makes it even better - because it uses hardlink deployments - your game folders aren't touched.

 

hardlink deployments - conceptually similar (but not exactly the same) as shortcuts.

 

imagine you have a file in my documents, and you make a shortcut to it on the desktop. click the shortcut, your file opens. if you delete the shortcut from your desktop your file is perfectly safe. re-create the shortcut, there it is - you're totally messing with the shortcut but the actual file itself remains in place in my documents.

 

when you deploy mods in vortex, it will put links to your mods into your game directory. when you purge mods in vortex it simply removes those links. the end result - your game folders are still intact and all is good, but the links to the mods are removed.

 

so, with vortex, you can download and deploy any mods you like - deploy them - fire up your game - like the mod? keep it. hate the mod? shutdown the game, purge it from vortex, fire up your game - you're back to how you were, and there's no loose files, no missing files, no cruft, no problems.

 

Sing Hosanas for Vortex and how it handles mod conflicts and how it handles deploy/purge operations.

 

In a nutshell, and at a very high level, this is what Vortex is doing for you.

 

Any other questions, or anything else you're not clear on? I'm here all week - and yes - I'm trying to help you, because your post was intelligent and polite and looked like a genuine attempt to learn something. Unlike many other tools who pollute these forums with their snowflake posts that are never their problem. :smile:

 

Thanks for such a nice, detailed explanation which was easy to understand, even for me! That's basically how I've understood it as well, but it's always nice to have it explained properly. Clears up any confusion on my part :) Sing hosana's for Vortex, indeed. That's at least what I've been doing the last few days! I'm having so much fun modding now that I almost forget to actually play the darn game :laugh:

[AugustaCalidia]

 

Btw, since I'm fairly inexperienced with modding and more often than not needs things spoon-fed to do things correctly, I could be a good help with guides in the future as I can point out where the guide seems to rely on "things everybody knows" except for us newbies and where it needs to be more specific. I've started jotted down a few things when I spot them so maybe there's somewhere to provide feedback on the guides and not just Vortex itself?

 

Please pursue this. I would think your best bet is to contact any of the Nexus staff who frequent these Vortex forums. Perhaps PM some of the staff?

 

Do you think a Knowledge Base glossary of terms would help? I suspect that technical terms and language used in the Knowledge Base and these forums are both opaque and intimidating to many who are new to mod managers and to Vortex.

[Guest deleted34304850]

honestly - to save you pain, frustration and confusion - ask any questions about stuff that you're not clear on. we all learned what we know by doing what you're doing now, and we're happy to pass on what we know and happy to stand to be corrected if we get it wrong.

the intention here is to support a wonderful program designed to make you a competent modder and take away all the pain points from modding. ignore the myriad of clowns who pop up with 1 post to their name and then disappear. there is a contingent of very helpful people who have a ton of knowledge on modding and vortex who will guide you.

just do the basics - take backups - understand what you want to do - ask questions on anything you're not sure about and before you know it, you'll be purging and deploying hundreds of mods across several profiles for dozens of games, and you'll be thinking "man, how did i think this was hard".

it just takes a bit of time, and a bit of patience and you'll be away.

[sopmac45]

honestly - to save you pain, frustration and confusion - ask any questions about stuff that you're not clear on. we all learned what we know by doing what you're doing now, and we're happy to pass on what we know and happy to stand to be corrected if we get it wrong.

the intention here is to support a wonderful program designed to make you a competent modder and take away all the pain points from modding. ignore the myriad of clowns who pop up with 1 post to their name and then disappear. there is a contingent of very helpful people who have a ton of knowledge on modding and vortex who will guide you.

just do the basics - take backups - understand what you want to do - ask questions on anything you're not sure about and before you know it, you'll be purging and deploying hundreds of mods across several profiles for dozens of games, and you'll be thinking "man, how did i think this was hard".

it just takes a bit of time, and a bit of patience and you'll be away.

 

 

Bravo !! Brilliant !! Excellent post 1ae0bfb8 .... I love the way you explained the mod conflicts and purge/deploy stuff to ThorarinnV .... it should be study by all of those who come with arrogance to criticize Vortex without knowing anything about it !! Kudos for you. Amazing post !! :cool:

[AugustaCalidia]

@1ae0bfb8: You deserve a great big hug and the Vortex Medal of Honor! :smile:

[Seraffian]

 

 

Btw, since I'm fairly inexperienced with modding and more often than not needs things spoon-fed to do things correctly, I could be a good help with guides in the future as I can point out where the guide seems to rely on "things everybody knows" except for us newbies and where it needs to be more specific. I've started jotted down a few things when I spot them so maybe there's somewhere to provide feedback on the guides and not just Vortex itself?

 

Please pursue this. I would think your best bet is to contact any of the Nexus staff who frequent these Vortex forums. Perhaps PM some of the staff?

 

Do you think a Knowledge Base glossary of terms would help? I suspect that technical terms and language used in the Knowledge Base and these forums is both opaque and intimidating to many who are new to mod managers and to Vortex.

 

 

I'll keep a notepad of things that pop up from time to time. Right now there's only two things in there and right now Vortex is working like a charm and requires no guides :) But I'm sure I'll stumble backwards into a serious of issues at some point in the future. I mean, I plan to mod Fallout 4 with 2 separate profiles in the future...

 

After hearing Gopher explain the difference between 'Masters' and 'Masters', yes, a Knowledge Base glossary of terms would certainly be helpful I think :laugh: If we can look up some of the terms used both in the mod manager and on these forums from time to time, that would save all of us some time I think (at least if people actually care to look it up first - some people seem reluctant to ever opening a guide or manual...). We could then easily look up terms in your replies we're uncertain about and you don't have to explain them multiple times in multiple threads to multiple users.

 

honestly - to save you pain, frustration and confusion - ask any questions about stuff that you're not clear on. we all learned what we know by doing what you're doing now, and we're happy to pass on what we know and happy to stand to be corrected if we get it wrong.

the intention here is to support a wonderful program designed to make you a competent modder and take away all the pain points from modding. ignore the myriad of clowns who pop up with 1 post to their name and then disappear. there is a contingent of very helpful people who have a ton of knowledge on modding and vortex who will guide you.

just do the basics - take backups - understand what you want to do - ask questions on anything you're not sure about and before you know it, you'll be purging and deploying hundreds of mods across several profiles for dozens of games, and you'll be thinking "man, how did i think this was hard".

it just takes a bit of time, and a bit of patience and you'll be away.

 

Ehm.. "take backups"...? :ohmy: that sounds like something really important one really should do a lot... I should look into that :laugh:

 

It's great to hear there are patient people on here who are ready and willing to deal with questions from us newbies! I am really trying to learn but it's good to know there's a place to ask those stupid questions I for some reason can't find the answer to. Maybe we should start a "Stupid Questions About Vortex" thread just to make sure everyone dares to ask the questions they think are too stupid to ask (obviously with a disclaimer in the first post stating one should read through the guides provided first) :laugh: Hopefull it won't turn into a "Thorarinn Asks All the Questions No One Else Dares To Ask" thread...