Vortex 1.0 Release

[MONSTERaider]

I've been using NMM for so many years, (I think since 2009) and I'm really happy with it, and I think I will never leave it, but I really want to thank you for the hard work and the effort done to NMM and Vortex. Maybe when the new Elder Scrolls gets released I will give Vortex a go.

Thank you again! and congrats on leaving the beta state.

Edited July 30, 2019 by MONSTERaider

[soupdragon1234]

In response to post #72143393. #72144508, #72144708, #72144743, #72144783, #72144978, #72145133, #72145678, #72145908, #72146263, #72146413, #72146538, #72146543, #72147408, #72147963, #72149828, #72149938, #72150433 are all replies on the same post.

Elianora wrote: Using Vortex to install mods and I love it, but I still use NMM to sort my load orders because Vortex doesn't support drag and dropping to manually organise plugins :D

Maybe someone can make an extension to Vortex that allows manual load order sorting. :thinkemoji:

ScarletStreak wrote: I second this.
We could only hope! It could definitely be an optional feature.

CaptainKibosh wrote: I've wondered about the philosophy behind Vortex's system for ordering mods. As a mod dabbler (at least as far as I can personally gauge myself on the spectrum of mod users' deftness with various modding tools), I actually find the Vortex's system for ordering mods to be quite helpful, but I can also see how the lack of more manual control of the load order could be frustrating for more veteran modders (and even I sometimes wish "drag and drop" were an option).

In my case, I was never really able to get long term stable game play in Skyrim through NMM (dabbled, there's that word again, briefly with MO also with little success), but I WAS able to do so with Vortex. From my perspective and limited skill set when it comes to modding, Vortex was just more user friendly and required far less researching text and video tutorials on the Internet compared to NMM and MO. This is not to disparage the other mod organizers, but Vortex worked well for my specific needs.

I assume the method for organizing the mod order--using a kind of Boolean logic I guess? (not sure that's the right term, I'm not a mathematician or programmer)--where load order is determined by a relativistic approach, e.g., Mod A must load before Mod B but must load after Mod C--is a means of keeping one's playthrough stable by making sure one can't muck up the load order too badly by potentially arbitrary or even haphazard placement. I'm personally grateful for that structural rigor since it kept me from making mistakes in my load order, but I can see how it would be more frustrating for people with more expertise than me and who'd want to be able to manipulate their load order with a more direct, hands-on approach. Although I do wonder if manipulating load order manually would even be possible with this "Boolean logic" system in place? Again, I'm not a programmer, but if someone has an answer that this layperson can understand, I'd love to hear it!

Anyway, heaps o' thanks to the team behind developing Vortex, you guys helped me create my first (relatively) stable playthrough on Skyrim SE! I'm constantly amazed by the creativity and passion that the modding community is able to put forth on a daily basis. Huzzah for transitioning out of beta!

wolfgrimdark wrote: EDIT: Nexus Dupe issue

wolfgrimdark wrote: I third this. I have gotten very good with using Vortex (well for me at least) and have solved all my issues except easy mod sorting on load order. Yes Vortex does let you customize this but it certainly isn't as nice as NMM drop and go. You can drag and drop but it is only relative to other specific mods versus overall order. So in V I made a custom group "mods to load last" and added 7 mods to it. Those 7 then load after all others. Then within that group I manually moved each of the 7 to load in certain order by some careful drag and drop and linking up. Again you can do it but not as nice as NMM.

Not really a complaint as I have everything running fine in Vortex for 3 games now ... and when I get my new PC in a few weeks I will finally move Skyrim over to it as well.

BigBizkit wrote: This is a point that is frequently brought up which is why we have written up an in-depth answer to it. The reasons behind us opting for automated load order sorting in combination with custom rules, over the traditional drag and drop system are outlined here: https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/The_Vortex_approach_to_load_order_sorting

There is generally no reason for a given plugin to load dead last in your load order. What would you do if you have several plugins that, according to load order information you have, all "need" to load last? It is always relative to other plugins.

That being said, if you can give actual examples of one or several plugins that don't work when ordered by LOOT/Vortex and absolutely need to be dragged and dropped to specific positions in the load order, please, do not hesitate to report them (e.g. via the Vortex forums).

Robbie922004 wrote: Yup, until this feature exists I see absolutely no reason to use Vortex over any other program + LOOT. Doing that gives you full manual control as well as automated sorting, while Vortex only allows for the latter. No tangible advantage.

Elianora wrote: The answer in the wiki doesn't really give a good argument, other than "Well it's easy because you get a stable game". It's actually horribly cumbersome to create tons of rules and groups as a power user. I **KNOW** how to make a stable game. I have unique situations that most users do not and I don't need Vortex's help with a stable game.

I know the auto sort, LOOT and community created rules work well for 99,8 % of users, but for us veterans, it's frustrating. For example I like to sort my load order in categories, depending on how I use my own mods, personal edits and different testing setups. Weapons are loading after each other in the load order, same as armours, environmental mods go in another location. Some mods need to load after others only in specific testing scenarios. I have absolute idea what conflicts with what and know exactly where everything goes and how I need to sort it. I have unique versions of popular mods (for example, removing AWKCR.esm as a dependency from armour mods) and my custom patches for things. It's extremely frustrating to try to sort my load order My Way™ in Vortex.

ACEAidan wrote: Robbie, if you actually read the goddamned link that BigBizkit sent, you would know that LOOT sometimes f*#@s up the load order. In those cases, you need to rearrange the load-order to make sure a specific plugin is loaded after another specific plugin. For veterans, that is easy and simple. However for beginners, and intermediates like me, it's not that easy. Vortex makes it super simple, by having an option to set a rule for that plugin to always load after the other plugin.

Tannin42 wrote: Vortex lets you sort plugins by the category of the corresponding mod. If you want to see your plugins ordered by what category they are in you don't have to change their load order at all, you just enable the "Mod Categories" column and then sort by that.
But the load order, which determins the mod index, should only be used to resolve conflicts. For users, especially those who don't know all the conflicts between their plugins to try and load order plugins by category can be completely counter productive.

Elianora wrote: It doesn't really matter how well I explain my point of view in this matter. Every time it gets completely disregarded and I get offered a "solution" that is not a solution to my situation or preferences at all.

I'll quote Robbie here:
"It's okay that that they don't want to add the feature, and it's okay that they believe in Vortex as a program the way it is. Absolutely no beef with Nexus for going in the direction they did."

Hence I said I'll use NMM or hope someone makes an extension like that. You can never make everyone happy.

Dark0ne wrote: Your preferences are pretty niche, Elianora, but I still love ya :D

wolfgrimdark wrote: I do think it is interesting that when I visit these news releases, check the V forums, or I am in various discord channels that this seems to come up (load order).

I read the link and it all makes sense from a general viewpoint.

It is also clear others would like another option.

That being said I do respect the decisions made. I may not agree with them, and apparently others do not either, but their tool, their site, their decision.

I choose to stay with V and live with the sorting even though I still run into problems with the auto-sorting and have to over-ride to fix them but at least its a small number (7 out of 298 mods currently that I have to over-ride).

Elinora did make a great point. For me, and my anal/OCD tendacies, I like sorting all my many plug-ins into groups [EDIT: My own groups not the default categories. Meaning I just clustered the plug-ins into groups visually outside of specific needs for specific order]. I always did that in NMM. It may not be optimal or best practice but I miss that. Sure I could do that in V but man it would take a lot more work to do so.

I do know others gave up on it over the load sorting. Granted its a tiny number compared to over all users but 3 folks on the discord I am on all tried it and two weeks later, after much swearing over the load sort, dropped V and went back to NMM. These are all veterans who know what they are doing and understood how to manage V over-rides. They do testing, often need very specific orders, etc.

Anyhow would be cool if there was some way to add an extension or plugin to V to allow for this for those who want it. Although I understand for most casual users V works fine for the reasons outlined in the article linked to WIKI.

Mod the mod so to speak :)

Elianora wrote: In response to post #72143393. #72144508, #72144708, #72144743, #72144783, #72144978, #72145133, #72145678, #72145908, #72146263, #72146413, #72146538, #72146543, #72147963 are all replies on the same post.

Elianora wrote: Using Vortex to install mods and I love it, but I still use NMM to sort my load orders because Vortex doesn't support drag and dropping to manually organise plugins :D

Maybe someone can make an extension to Vortex that allows manual load order sorting. :thinkemoji:

ScarletStreak wrote: I second this.
We could only hope! It could definitely be an optional feature.

CaptainKibosh wrote: I've wondered about the philosophy behind Vortex's system for ordering mods. As a mod dabbler (at least as far as I can personally gauge myself on the spectrum of mod users' deftness with various modding tools), I actually find the Vortex's system for ordering mods to be quite helpful, but I can also see how the lack of more manual control of the load order could be frustrating for more veteran modders (and even I sometimes wish "drag and drop" were an option).

In my case, I was never really able to get long term stable game play in Skyrim through NMM (dabbled, there's that word again, briefly with MO also with little success), but I WAS able to do so with Vortex. From my perspective and limited skill set when it comes to modding, Vortex was just more user friendly and required far less researching text and video tutorials on the Internet compared to NMM and MO. This is not to disparage the other mod organizers, but Vortex worked well for my specific needs.

I assume the method for organizing the mod order--using a kind of Boolean logic I guess? (not sure that's the right term, I'm not a mathematician or programmer)--where load order is determined by a relativistic approach, e.g., Mod A must load before Mod B but must load after Mod C--is a means of keeping one's playthrough stable by making sure one can't muck up the load order too badly by potentially arbitrary or even haphazard placement. I'm personally grateful for that structural rigor since it kept me from making mistakes in my load order, but I can see how it would be more frustrating for people with more expertise than me and who'd want to be able to manipulate their load order with a more direct, hands-on approach. Although I do wonder if manipulating load order manually would even be possible with this "Boolean logic" system in place? Again, I'm not a programmer, but if someone has an answer that this layperson can understand, I'd love to hear it!

Anyway, heaps o' thanks to the team behind developing Vortex, you guys helped me create my first (relatively) stable playthrough on Skyrim SE! I'm constantly amazed by the creativity and passion that the modding community is able to put forth on a daily basis. Huzzah for transitioning out of beta!

wolfgrimdark wrote: EDIT: Nexus Dupe issue

wolfgrimdark wrote: I third this. I have gotten very good with using Vortex (well for me at least) and have solved all my issues except easy mod sorting on load order. Yes Vortex does let you customize this but it certainly isn't as nice as NMM drop and go. You can drag and drop but it is only relative to other specific mods versus overall order. So in V I made a custom group "mods to load last" and added 7 mods to it. Those 7 then load after all others. Then within that group I manually moved each of the 7 to load in certain order by some careful drag and drop and linking up. Again you can do it but not as nice as NMM.

Not really a complaint as I have everything running fine in Vortex for 3 games now ... and when I get my new PC in a few weeks I will finally move Skyrim over to it as well.

BigBizkit wrote: This is a point that is frequently brought up which is why we have written up an in-depth answer to it. The reasons behind us opting for automated load order sorting in combination with custom rules, over the traditional drag and drop system are outlined here: https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/The_Vortex_approach_to_load_order_sorting

There is generally no reason for a given plugin to load dead last in your load order. What would you do if you have several plugins that, according to load order information you have, all "need" to load last? It is always relative to other plugins.

That being said, if you can give actual examples of one or several plugins that don't work when ordered by LOOT/Vortex and absolutely need to be dragged and dropped to specific positions in the load order, please, do not hesitate to report them (e.g. via the Vortex forums).

Robbie922004 wrote: Yup, until this feature exists I see absolutely no reason to use Vortex over any other program + LOOT. Doing that gives you full manual control as well as automated sorting, while Vortex only allows for the latter. No tangible advantage.

Elianora wrote: The answer in the wiki doesn't really give a good argument, other than "Well it's easy because you get a stable game". It's actually horribly cumbersome to create tons of rules and groups as a power user. I **KNOW** how to make a stable game. I have unique situations that most users do not and I don't need Vortex's help with a stable game.

I know the auto sort, LOOT and community created rules work well for 99,8 % of users, but for us veterans, it's frustrating. For example I like to sort my load order in categories, depending on how I use my own mods, personal edits and different testing setups. Weapons are loading after each other in the load order, same as armours, environmental mods go in another location. Some mods need to load after others only in specific testing scenarios. I have absolute idea what conflicts with what and know exactly where everything goes and how I need to sort it. I have unique versions of popular mods (for example, removing AWKCR.esm as a dependency from armour mods) and my custom patches for things. It's extremely frustrating to try to sort my load order My Way™ in Vortex.

ACEAidan wrote: Robbie, if you actually read the goddamned link that BigBizkit sent, you would know that LOOT sometimes f*#@s up the load order. In those cases, you need to rearrange the load-order to make sure a specific plugin is loaded after another specific plugin. For veterans, that is easy and simple. However for beginners, and intermediates like me, it's not that easy. Vortex makes it super simple, by having an option to set a rule for that plugin to always load after the other plugin.

Tannin42 wrote: Vortex lets you sort plugins by the category of the corresponding mod. If you want to see your plugins ordered by what category they are in you don't have to change their load order at all, you just enable the "Mod Categories" column and then sort by that.
But the load order, which determins the mod index, should only be used to resolve conflicts. For users, especially those who don't know all the conflicts between their plugins to try and load order plugins by category can be completely counter productive.

Elianora wrote: It doesn't really matter how well I explain my point of view in this matter. Every time it gets completely disregarded and I get offered a "solution" that is not a solution to my situation or preferences at all.

I'll quote Robbie here:
"It's okay that that they don't want to add the feature, and it's okay that they believe in Vortex as a program the way it is. Absolutely no beef with Nexus for going in the direction they did."

Hence I said I'll use NMM or hope someone makes an extension like that. You can never make everyone happy.

Dark0ne wrote: Your preferences are pretty niche, Elianora, but I still love ya :D

wolfgrimdark wrote: I do think it is interesting that when I visit these news releases, check the V forums, or I am in various discord channels that this seems to come up (load order).

I read the link and it all makes sense from a general viewpoint.

It is also clear others would like another option.

That being said I do respect the decisions made. I may not agree with them, and apparently others do not either, but their tool, their site, their decision.

I choose to stay with V and live with the sorting even though I still run into problems with the auto-sorting and have to over-ride to fix them but at least its a small number (7 out of 298 mods currently that I have to over-ride).

Elinora did make a great point. For me, and my anal/OCD tendacies, I like sorting all my many plug-ins into groups [EDIT: My own groups not the default categories. Meaning I just clustered the plug-ins into groups visually outside of specific needs for specific order]. I always did that in NMM. It may not be optimal or best practice but I miss that. Sure I could do that in V but man it would take a lot more work to do so.

I do know others gave up on it over the load sorting. Granted its a tiny number compared to over all users but 3 folks on the discord I am on all tried it and two weeks later, after much swearing over the load sort, dropped V and went back to NMM. These are all veterans who know what they are doing and understood how to manage V over-rides. They do testing, often need very specific orders, etc.

Anyhow would be cool if there was some way to add an extension or plugin to V to allow for this for those who want it. Although I understand for most casual users V works fine for the reasons outlined in the article linked to WIKI.

Mod the mod so to speak :smile:

N7R wrote: This is why I use the latest version of MO2. It has the features and flexibility I need when making mods/playing the game that Vortex currently does not offer. It would be nice if modules for more Vortex flexibility happen in the future, until then MO2 for me.

Dark0ne wrote: Your preferences are pretty niche, Elianora, but I still love ya :D

I know, bb :wub:

N7R wrote: This is why I use the latest version of MO2. It has the features and flexibility I need when making mods/playing the game that Vortex currently does not offer. It would be nice if modules for more Vortex flexibility happen in the future, until then MO2 for me.

opusGlass wrote: In a perfect world where every mod issue could be fixed by LOOT, dragging load order wouldn't be needed. But in reality, manual load orders are essential for debugging mod conflicts and that's way more cumbersome if LO is strictly rule-based. Not to mention custom LO & patching like Elianora mentioned.

kinggath wrote: I agree with Elianora that having access to simple, drag-and-drop, manual ordering would be nice.

I use Vortex for my gaming machine, but for development - it's too cumbersome.

When doing things like upward-mod merging with XEdit, or trouble-shooting conflicts with mods, I can't have an auto-sorting system messing with the science. So I end up using NMM as a quick solution to updating my Plugins.txt file, particularly when I'm trying to do dev work.

Zanderat wrote: ???? It already does. I have several rules set up. Also, it can do drag and drop if you want. Not sure why peeps keep saying it doesn't. In fact, you can turn off auto-sort altogether if you want. (Now as to whether or not any of that is a good idea, that is another question).

I'm with Elianora except I use WB to manually sort plugins (it has some useful extra features as well which are too useful to do without) together with LOOT and Vortex's auto sort disabled.

I have my reasons mainly if theres a mod I'm not sure about/testing I want it last in the LO so it can't have its records overwritten by anything else once I'm sure everythings fine then I'll run LOOT and let it place it where it wants I'm not one of the fanatics who simply MUST have their LO exactly the way they want it because thats silly I'll trust LOOT when I'm done but not before. And before anyone says "You can do that with Vortex" yes you can (you can exactly the same thing with LOOT too because its basically inheriting its functions) but that means I have to create a custom load order rule for that mod, then make sure I remove it when its done, etc etc. A simple click of the mouse in WB and its done. No, its not a permanent sort but I don't want it to be.

Maybe I'm and edge case and then again maybe not. But I/we've been through all these arguments before and no-ones budging on anything so the whole thing is moot really.

[Zanderat]

Ahem.

 

[HadToRegister]

Ahem.

 

 

 

Another way, that I prefer.

Plugin name in left box, plugin name in right box, "MUST LOAD AFTER" in middle box, hit APPLY.

DONE.

 

 

[RuinsFate]

I gave Vortex a try, but the constant pop ups and notifications, along with the oversized, over-menued UI turned me off.

 

Is it still 3 or 4 clicks deep in different places to get to xEdit or Open Game Folder?

[Zanderat]

In response to post #72151918.

HadToRegister wrote:

Ahem.

 

 

 

Another way, that I prefer.
Plugin name in left box, plugin name in right box, "MUST LOAD AFTER" in middle box, hit APPLY.
DONE.

 

 

Yes. Just illustrating that drag and drop is there despite what people have been led to believe..

[Zanderat]

Also, this:

 

[HadToRegister]

I gave Vortex a try, but the constant pop ups and notifications, along with the oversized, over-menued UI turned me off.

 

Is it still 3 or 4 clicks deep in different places to get to xEdit or Open Game Folder?

 

 

SETTINGS------->THEME------->COMPACT

 

One click for Xedit once you have it set up in your Tool Box.

 

I also recently used Vortex to convert 75 Esps to ESPfes, so now I have 279 mods in my load order with room for a lot more (Mod count was only 217 when I took this)

 

 

 

[SirTwist]

While Vortex is the spiritual successor to NMM, I do find it's a bit better, and some what easier to use than NMM. No more searching for games when I start it up, and wanting to add in Bethesda games that I use MO2 on. And I get MO2 from discord, not on the nexus. I do like that it does, somewhat, work for games, however, it doesn't work for all games. Allow me to further explain. I play the old KotOR and KotOR II games, Knights of the Old Republic and The Sith Lords. It has handled a few headaches I had when I originally modded, and played the game. I would say, that Vortex needs to add a step before deploying mods, if they contain an .exe. That is, Vortex detects that there is an .exe, and asks if you want to install it. And along with other people, I say add in drag and drop mod ordering, rather than

"automatic" sorting. While automatic sorting is a good thing, it can cause some problems. Anyway, I do like Vortex, to a point, and I will use it for other games than what I use Mod Organizer for. I would like to see a bit further development of Vortex.

[Deleted28905070User]

Is there any chance of a Linux version or it will always be only for windows?