Bashed Patch, Mod Merging, and Leveled Lists question

[gammaleak]

So... Wrye Bash is a great tool and, especially together with BOSS, seems to know what it's doing all by itself.

 

But I was thinking about the different mods I have installed and I realized that I've got two that modify leveled lists and it doesn't seem to me that they're being merged. In particular, I'm trying to use these two mods

• Balanced Creature Stats
• NPC Static Level

My main goals are: better curve on the game's leveling and no bandits/marauders with equipment I feel they really shouldn't have (daedric armor, etc.).

 

Inspecting the CREA records through Wrye Bash shows that there's a little bit of overlap, so they must both be affecting the same leveled list. But Wrye Bash doesn't detect that the need to be merged. Maybe because Balanced Creature Stats is fairly new and not included in a database of "what to do with this mod"? I don't know.

 

Anyway, I apologize for rambling, but I guess my question is: am I right in thinking that I need to manually mark both of those mods for merging? Also, do I need to start my game over (I'm only a few hours in) or will I probably be safe if I remerge my Bashed Patch with both of these in there?

Edited January 12, 2020 by gammaleak

[Striker879]

While I still use BOSS myself, I'd like to point out that Wrye Bash (WB) no longer supports BOSS and the last time the BOSS masterlist was updated is back in Dec 2018. Using BOSS with WB is possible, but it takes some manual labour on your part to work as intended.

 

I use the desktop shortcut to run BOSS and then turn off lock load order in WB. You can't run BOSS from within WB for any of it's latest versions. Mods that aren't on the BOSS masterlist get a User Rule (I use the groups found in BOSS as a guide for sort order and adjust as needed to get things working how I'd like).

 

I use WB to add bash tags when needed for mods not on the BOSS masterlist. I'm no expert on bash tags .... all that I know about them I've gleaned from Wrye Bash General Readme.html and Wrye Bash Advanced Readme.html along with what little I've picked up from the forums over the years. As far as I know WB will merge the leveled lists using load order without any further action required (though bash tags and load order combined can be used)

 

I see that NPC Static Level is an older mod and is found on the masterlist, while the Balanced Creature Stats is newer and not on the list. NPC Static Level has no bash tags assigned by BOSS ... not sure whether the mod author assigned any or not. Of course BOSS won't assign any to Balanced Creature Stats, and I don't know about bash tags assigned by the author there either.

 

The bash tag Relev may come in handy after you've identified where the mods overlap leveled list wise using TES4Edit or the CS. Relev will allow records from a higher load order mod to "win" the conflict with a lower load order mod that doesn't have the bash tag. You'll need to decide which of the two mods should have the bash tag and which will use load order alone.

[gammaleak]

Interesting! Thank you! So, is LOOT officially the best thing to use now, then? I started my mod list based on Bevilex's list and he points you to BOSS.

 

In any case... man... I guess I need to do more reading. I think the order of the mods is less important here than just, "Do they get merged? Should they get merged?" It looks like they do not. In the Bashed Patch details neither one is listed. This makes me fear that only one of them (In this case, Balanced Creature Stats) is "winning" the load order battle. But I don't really know enough about Leveled Lists and how Wrye Bash knows what to do with the mods in order to know for sure if I need to merge them.

 

Maybe, at the end of the day, it would be hard to do much damage if I merged them anyway???

[Striker879]

As I have zero experience with LOOT I'll need to let others advise on the BOSS vs LOOT debate.

 

Let me see if I can give an example of load order vs load order + bash tags as it relates to leveled list ... and not mess it up (often times trying to fabricate examples on bash patch ins and outs makes my head explode).

 

Let say we have modA and modB and each only make changes to leveled lists (like your two mods). ModA changes records for asset1, asset2, asset3 and asset4 from the vanilla game. ModB changes asset2, asset4 and asset5 from the vanilla game.

 

If modA is higher in the load order than modB the result will be asset1 and asset3 from modA and asset2, asset4 and asset5 from modB (modB is the conflict winner).

 

If modB is higher in the load order than modA the result will be asset1 thru asset4 from modA and asset5 from modB (modA is the conflict winner).

 

If we now use the Relev bash tag on one of the two mods we'll see different results in the game (if both mods used the same bash tag then WB will again only have load order to determine the winners of the conflicts).

 

Add the Relev tag to modA and the examples now become:

 

If modA is higher in the load order than modB the result will be asset1 thru asset4 from modA and asset5 from modB (so not any different than exactly the opposite load order with the bash tag).

 

If modB is higher in the load order than modA the result will again be asset1 thru asset4 from modA and asset5 from modB (so same as the reverse with bash tag ... note that in this simple example you could simply use load order to achieve what you want, providing having modA win is what you wanted).

 

Add the Relev tag to modB and the examples change (and better demonstrate the power of bash tags):

 

If modA is higher than modB in the load order we will have asset1 and asset3 from modA and asset2, asset4 and asset5 from modB (again something that can be achieved with load order alone).

 

If modB is higher than modA in the load order we will have asset1 and asset3 from modA and asset2, asset4 and asset5 from modB (exactly the same as above ... something that can not be achieved via load order alone when referring to the same order above without bash tags).

 

Hopefully these rather simple examples can help shine some light on why bash tags are so powerful. Imagine a situation with more than two mods overlapping. By using both load order and bash tags we gain far greater control over what parts of which mods win the conflicts.

 

Of course there will always be conflicts that can't be resolved with only bash tags and load order, and manually merged mods then becomes the only way to achieve the results you want.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Striker879

[gammaleak]

OK, sorry to belabor the point, I just want to make sure I understand.

 

See, when I right-click on the Bashed Patch and choose "Rebuild Patch" it presents that window showing you what it's about to do. When I click on "Leveled Lists" in the left pane, neither of the two mods I'm concerned about show up as being pulled into the Bashed Patch.

 

Is that because...

a) They don't really interfere with each other, so WB doesn't need to bother?

b) WB doesn't realize they might interfere and I need to do something to make sure WB knows this?

 

I realize that without you inspecting those two mods you can't really answer definitively. And I don't expect you to do that. However, is "b)" a possibility? Or am I fine and I should just get back to playing? :smile:

 

EDIT: OK... ugh. My ignorance is showing. So... apparently both mods are being merged. But strangely enough neither one shows up in the "Leveled Lists" section that talks about what's being merged. So strange. Well, not strange... it just means I don't know what I'm talking about or what's going on.

Edited January 13, 2020 by gammaleak

[gammaleak]

OK, I think I've determined that the best thing is for me to just leave it alone. Balanced Creatures doesn't touch bandits/marauders, so if that's all I really want from NPC Static Levels, then they shouldn't interfere with each other. At least... I think so.

 

Thanks so much for your help.

[Striker879]

Ya you really need to put the glasses on and focus hard when reading all the info presented in the summary of what WB has done after the bashed patch is rebuilt ... there's a ton of detail.

 

I use TES4Edit and the CS to see what conflicts and what non-conflict stuff any mod or group of mods has brought to the game. I think the best plan is always use as little "force" as possible to achieve your results, so if those two checks don't show anything that can't be resolved through load order alone that is all I use.

 

It's quite possible that WB isn't reporting either in the bashed patch because there is no conflict between the two mods. I think if either (or both) had a bash tag set by the author they would show up in the bashed patch.

[Grogrokl]

1) sort with boss

2) build the bashed patch

3) if you have time to improve things, go to step 4), otherwise play the game as it is

4) open the bashed patch in tes4edit. Do you like the result? If not, rebuild it again with different bash tags until you get it right. Bash tags sometime act a bit unpredictable and to get it right might require some trial and error. Changing the load order can help as well but I always try to avoid that. Some conflicts though are best fixed manually by editing the bashed patch directly with tes4edit and fixing it there. Of course you will lose the fix the next time you rebuild the patched patch and that's why I recommend having another esp loaded after the bashed patch which you copy all your fixes to so that they are saved there and loaded each time you play. Over time this esp might grow very big with 20 masters or so since it has fixed so many conflicts from various mods. In most cases this solution is much faster than tweaking with bash tags. Only if you have like 30 errors of the same type it's faster to fix them with a bash tag since you can fix them all by once by adding one single bash tag.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Grogrokl

[DrakeTheDragon]

Hmm, I'm also far from an expert here, but I think to recall leveled lists get always merged through the bashed patch, so in the end all entries from all mods affecting the same list will be inside the resulting list. (Don't really know how it "removes" items from leveled lists though, but maybe that's what the bash tags for leveled lists are really for.)

 

The mods "showing up" inside the leveled lists dialog page are most likely ones requiring special treatment, not the simple ones which will just merge their lists together seamlessly. Though I also have no idea what kind of mods these would be right now either.

 

And as always, someone correct me, if I'm wrong.

[gammaleak]

Very informative, everyone! Thank you for the insights.