Vortex or MO2 in 2020?

[BellaDovah]

Hello,

 

This might be a question asked hundreds of times, but I'm struggling to find the answer for me.

I haven't touched Skyrim or mods for it in over a year, so I feel very lost and rusty. When I did play and mod however, I'd say I was really quite experienced. I use LOTS of mods, and I mean lots.

I used to use MO2 and learned a lot about it and used it well. However, I know that Vortex is pretty popular now and has been improved since its release.

So, now that I want to get back into Skyrim modding, should I go for MO2 again or try Vortex instead?

 

Thanks

[HadToRegister]

Hello,

 

This might be a question asked hundreds of times, but I'm struggling to find the answer for me.

I haven't touched Skyrim or mods for it in over a year, so I feel very lost and rusty. When I did play and mod however, I'd say I was really quite experienced. I use LOTS of mods, and I mean lots.

I used to use MO2 and learned a lot about it and used it well. However, I know that Vortex is pretty popular now and has been improved since its release.

So, now that I want to get back into Skyrim modding, should I go for MO2 again or try Vortex instead?

 

Thanks

 

 

You won't find a thread that will answer your question because any thread asking Vortex or (Various Mod Manager) always end up getting locked because they cause a Flame War.

[BellaDovah]

 

You won't find a thread that will answer your question because any thread asking Vortex or (Various Mod Manager) always end up getting locked because they cause a Flame War.

 

Oh no, that's not what I'm trying to do here!

 

I get that neither are necessarily better than the other and it's often a case of personal preference, but I'm just trying to figure out which is best for me.

I want the most flexibility and customisability possible. I want the best chance of achieving a stable game with 100s of mods as possible, but I don't want anything baby/idiot-proofed.

[DoctorKaizeld]

Vortex hands down. It works for more games then MO, is easy to use, and largely idiot proof. Once you get used to it you can install a functional mod list in a few minutes. Also has mods for it apparently.

[anjenthedog]

Vortex is very easy to use, and Nexus of course supports it naively natively. MO2 seems very popular among LE > SE transfers, probably like many things, because of a certain amount of "Brand loyalty" and/or previous experience with mod managers.

 

For me, Vortex is largely effortless to use and was ~easy to learn, with the possible exception of its handling of load order issues, which, although largely an almost mindless process - it normally advises you to load before(suggested), load after(suggested) with a high degree of accuracy when a load contention needs to be resolved - well... imo could be done with a bit less mystery in the exceptional case when more complex load order decisions need to be made, with just a bit more effort by its developers in the UI included instructions (more words, more clarity, and maybe even some graphics like flow charts).

 

Even with that last bit said, I've had very few problems in installing ~500 hundred mods or so, and most problems I've had have been faulty mods, irreconcilable mod incompatibilities, and my own mistakes - like installing LE mods when I first began playing and didn't realize they are different and most often incompatible mods for SE, ie, Skyrim(LE, oldrim) vs Skyrim SE.

 

Installing and uninstalling mods is easy with Vortex. from nexus there's a download link for most mods that automatically links to Vortex (that is,m clicking the vortex button for a give mod with automatically download the mod and install it, prompting you only to answer certain questions presented by the mod installation configuration prompts (unique and not always part of a mod install) or when a load contention needs to be resolved. And if one prefers to manually download a file then install locally (from Nexus or elsewhere), that's supported as well (although direct vortex downloads have a few positives like notifying you when updates are available, author info, and so forth)

 

I don't care which you choose. I hope you choose the one best suited to you. But if all your buds use a specific mod manager, I'd suggest that you use it too... for the peace of the King! Just sharing the only perspective I can offer, since I've never used MO2. I'm sure its users can and will chime in with their own positives for MO2.

[vegawagon350]

I use MO2 for Fallout 4 because it was a logical switch for me from NMM ages ago. Vortex seems less intuitive to me but I have not done much with it and I may investigate it if I get back to modding Skyrim SE. Vortex It is the preferred platform for Nexus and I am sure it functions fine, however at this time I am not ready to recreate my 600+ hour play through in a new manager with all my custom edits and patches for my over 200 mods and my multiple profiles.

 

TL; DR version:

 

I'm lazy and I learn slowly so I stick to what I know

[HadToRegister]

Vortex is very easy to use, and Nexus of course supports it naively. MO2 seems very popular among LE > SE transfers, probably like many things, because of a certain amount of "Brand loyalty" and/or previous experience with mod managers.

 

For me, Vortex is largely effortless to use and was ~easy to learn, with the possible exception of its handling of load order issues, which, although largely an almost mindless process - it normally advises you to load before(suggested), load after(suggested) with a high degree of accuracy when a load contention needs to be resolved - well... imo could be done with a bit less mystery in the exceptional case when more complex load order decisions need to be made, with just a bit more effort by its developers in the UI included instructions (more words, more clarity, and maybe even some graphics like flow charts).

 

Even with that last bit said, I've had very few problems in installing ~500 hundred mods or so, and most problems I've had have been faulty mods, irreconcilable mod incompatibilities, and my own mistakes - like installing LE mods when I first began playing and didn't realize they are different and most often incompatible mods for SE, ie, Skyrim(LE, oldrim) vs Skyrim SE.

 

Installing and uninstalling mods is easy with Vortex. from nexus there's a download link for most mods that automatically links to Vortex (that is,m clicking the vortex button for a give mod with automatically download the mod and install it, prompting you only to answer certain questions presented by the mod installation configuration prompts (unique and not always part of a mod install) or when a load contention needs to be resolved. And if one prefers to manually download a file then install locally (from Nexus or elsewhere), that's supported as well (although direct vortex downloads have a few positives like notifying you when updates are available, author info, and so forth)

 

I don't care which you choose. I hope you choose the one best suited to you. But if all your buds use a specific mod manager, I'd suggest that you use it too... for the peace of the King! Just sharing the only perspective I can offer, since I've never used MO2. I'm sure its users can and will chime in with their own positives for MO2.

 

 

Well said.

 

Also, I have used NMM, MO, MO2 and Vortex.

 

I eventually ended up with Vortex, although, I was one of those people that purposely hated Vortex because it wouldn't let me blindly mess up my load order, and I fought against that with the developer for a very long time (I have more than one "Manual Load Order" thread in the Vortex forum) because I had just transitioned from NMM to Vortex, and I had to UNLEARN the bad habits that NMM had instilled in me, such as Meticulously obsessing over PLUGIN order, while completely ignoring BSA/BA2/Texture/Mesh order.

 

You have to change your way of thinking when using Vortex, with other mod managers, they let you move the plugins around, but treat the BSA/BA2/Textures/Meshes as secondary, so while you continue to move your plugins around in your load order in a useless attempt to get the textures/meshes/bBSA/BA2 to show up in game, which is a COMPLETE Waste of time, the ACTUAL problem is caused by which order the Textures/Meshes/BA2/BSA are loaded by the game.

(This is something that NMM gives you ONE chance at, and if you screw up, you have to uninstall all of those mods, and try again until you get the correct order)

 

With Vortex, if you run into that situation that I just described, you are told that you have conflicting files (Textures/meshes/BA2/BSA) and you are given an option to make Load Order "Rules" for those Files (NMM only lets you overwrite those files/folders ONE TIME as you install them, so be careful)

 

So, you're told that MOD B's textures overwrite the MOD A textures you actually want to see in the game.....well, all you have to do is tell Vortex to LOAD Mod A AFTER Mod B in order to overwrite the textures.

With NMM, you'd have to UNINSTALL BOTH Mod A and Mod B and reinstall them both.

If it turns out you made the wrong choice, you simply have to change the "LOAD Mod A AFTER Mod B" to "LOAD Mod A BEFORE Mod B" and Vortex will restore the overwritten files and rewrite the proper ones with no need to uninstall and reinstall the original mods.

 

YES, it has a learning curve, but if you are willing to drop the obsession with focusing on the load order of ESPs, you'll be very happy.

 

 

 

 

[Vyxenne]

Well said.

 

Also, I have used NMM, MO, MO2 and Vortex.

 

I eventually ended up with Vortex, although, I was one of those people that purposely hated Vortex because it wouldn't let me blindly mess up my load order, and I fought against that with the developer for a very long time (I have more than one "Manual Load Order" thread in the Vortex forum) because I had just transitioned from NMM to Vortex, and I had to UNLEARN the bad habits that NMM had instilled in me, such as Meticulously obsessing over PLUGIN order, while completely ignoring BSA/BA2/Texture/Mesh order.

 

You have to change your way of thinking when using Vortex, with other mod managers, they let you move the plugins around, but treat the BSA/BA2/Textures/Meshes as secondary, so while you continue to move your plugins around in your load order in a useless attempt to get the textures/meshes/bBSA/BA2 to show up in game, which is a COMPLETE Waste of time, the ACTUAL problem is caused by which order the Textures/Meshes/BA2/BSA are loaded by the game.

(This is something that NMM gives you ONE chance at, and if you screw up, you have to uninstall all of those mods, and try again until you get the correct order)

 

With Vortex, if you run into that situation that I just described, you are told that you have conflicting files (Textures/meshes/BA2/BSA) and you are given an option to make Load Order "Rules" for those Files (NMM only lets you overwrite those files/folders ONE TIME as you install them, so be careful)

 

So, you're told that MOD B's textures overwrite the MOD A textures you actually want to see in the game.....well, all you have to do is tell Vortex to LOAD Mod A AFTER Mod B in order to overwrite the textures.

With NMM, you'd have to UNINSTALL BOTH Mod A and Mod B and reinstall them both.

If it turns out you made the wrong choice, you simply have to change the "LOAD Mod A AFTER Mod B" to "LOAD Mod A BEFORE Mod B" and Vortex will restore the overwritten files and rewrite the proper ones with no need to uninstall and reinstall the original mods.

 

YES, it has a learning curve, but if you are willing to drop the obsession with focusing on the load order of ESPs, you'll be very happy.

 

Actually, many BSA-packed mods have mostly-empty plugins for the sole purpose of giving users a way to specify the order in which the game loads the BSA-packed assets- Skyrim loads BSA assets based on plugin load order.

 

Also, Vortex is FAR more flexible than what you implied above- while NMM allowed load order by mod (load ALL of Mod B after Mod A), Vortex allows you to set load order (priorities, actually) on a file-by-file basis! So if you have, for example, two armor replacers, both of which replace Armor 11 and Armor 29 but have no other conflicts with their other armors, you can easily tell Vortex to prioritize (load, use, whatever paradigm you want to use) Mod A's meshes and textures for Armor 29 and mod B's meshes and textures for Armor 11. In fact, you could even say "use Mod A's meshes and Mod B's Textures for Armor 29!!" Of course, using one mod's textures on another mod's meshes probably would not work well- I'm just using that as an illustration of the flexibility offered by Vortex.

 

Also, Vortex can now install SKSE (and other Bethesda games' script extenders) just by dragging the SKSE 7z archive into the Drop Files area of Vortex and clicking "Install." This is a major breakthrough and will probably (eventually) eliminate the number-one source of user frustration and errors.

[HadToRegister]

 

Well said.

 

Also, I have used NMM, MO, MO2 and Vortex.

 

I eventually ended up with Vortex, although, I was one of those people that purposely hated Vortex because it wouldn't let me blindly mess up my load order, and I fought against that with the developer for a very long time (I have more than one "Manual Load Order" thread in the Vortex forum) because I had just transitioned from NMM to Vortex, and I had to UNLEARN the bad habits that NMM had instilled in me, such as Meticulously obsessing over PLUGIN order, while completely ignoring BSA/BA2/Texture/Mesh order.

 

You have to change your way of thinking when using Vortex, with other mod managers, they let you move the plugins around, but treat the BSA/BA2/Textures/Meshes as secondary, so while you continue to move your plugins around in your load order in a useless attempt to get the textures/meshes/bBSA/BA2 to show up in game, which is a COMPLETE Waste of time, the ACTUAL problem is caused by which order the Textures/Meshes/BA2/BSA are loaded by the game.

(This is something that NMM gives you ONE chance at, and if you screw up, you have to uninstall all of those mods, and try again until you get the correct order)

 

With Vortex, if you run into that situation that I just described, you are told that you have conflicting files (Textures/meshes/BA2/BSA) and you are given an option to make Load Order "Rules" for those Files (NMM only lets you overwrite those files/folders ONE TIME as you install them, so be careful)

 

So, you're told that MOD B's textures overwrite the MOD A textures you actually want to see in the game.....well, all you have to do is tell Vortex to LOAD Mod A AFTER Mod B in order to overwrite the textures.

With NMM, you'd have to UNINSTALL BOTH Mod A and Mod B and reinstall them both.

If it turns out you made the wrong choice, you simply have to change the "LOAD Mod A AFTER Mod B" to "LOAD Mod A BEFORE Mod B" and Vortex will restore the overwritten files and rewrite the proper ones with no need to uninstall and reinstall the original mods.

 

YES, it has a learning curve, but if you are willing to drop the obsession with focusing on the load order of ESPs, you'll be very happy.

 

Actually, many BSA-packed mods have mostly-empty plugins for the sole purpose of giving users a way to specify the order in which the game loads the BSA-packed assets- Skyrim loads BSA assets based on plugin load order.

 

Also, Vortex is FAR more flexible than what you implied above- while NMM allowed load order by mod (load ALL of Mod B after Mod A), Vortex allows you to set load order (priorities, actually) on a file-by-file basis! So if you have, for example, two armor replacers, both of which replace Armor 11 and Armor 29 but have no other conflicts with their other armors, you can easily tell Vortex to prioritize (load, use, whatever paradigm you want to use) Mod A's meshes and textures for Armor 29 and mod B's meshes and textures for Armor 11. In fact, you could even say "use Mod A's meshes and Mod B's Textures for Armor 29!!" Of course, using one mod's textures on another mod's meshes probably would not work well- I'm just using that as an illustration of the flexibility offered by Vortex.

 

 

 

It also has another feature I discovered today.

 

People who installed RaceMenu were having a problem because skeevr.dll was included in the package so they were getting an error about incompatibility.

 

When I switched to the plugins tab, a switch appeared that allowed me to filter the SKSE mods that needed to be updated in order to work with the newest version of SKSE.

Once the problem was fixed (Renaming the *.dll), the switch went back into hiding.

[Sexyowl]

For many of the issues people are stating that involve NMM they don't look at MO2, especially the sorting issue...that's what LOOT is for. Yeah, Vortex has it built in, but you can access loot from MO2. It works for me. Plus, I'm a big fan of the virtual file directory which leaves my core SSE files untouched.

Finally (and this is personal), I detest tiles on my desktop. I can see perfectly fine without those big ugly things in front of me. Modern UI has its detractors.