The Witcher 3 Mod Manager or Vortex

[gnarly1]

From reading around the interwebs I see some people insist that The Witcher 3 Mod Manager is 'better' than Vortex for modding TW3, but I can't find any persuasive reasons why this is the case.

 

Can someone explain why TW3MM is superior?

[eNoodles]

It's best to install TW3 mods manually, without any managers. Managers can mess up sometimes, and you'll be confused as to why something isn't working. If you do it all yourself and carefully follow installation instructions, 1) it's less likely something will be messed up in the first place; 2) if something does go wrong, it'll be easier to troubleshoot if you know what *you* did, as opposed to blindly letting a manager handle it

[sc0urge]

TW3MM has integrated merging functions (KDiff) for scripts that need to contain lines of code from different mod sources, which is pretty common when you start running a hundred mods. You can also selectively delete the compiled script merges that you make and re-merge them if you have issues in the script manager, which by itself would be enough reason to use TW3MM over Vortex. If the automerge causes a problem with compiling, it will tell you which file, so you can delete the automerge and selectively choose which of the two or three (or combination and order) of the mod script lines you need. TW3MM also supports prioritizing mod loading order, so things will be loaded in order and may prevent the need for some messy merging or file version selection. It also keeps a list of data files in your DLC folder, many of which are needed by mods in the Mods folder, which is what TW3MM primarily handles. There are some mods that need to be manually unzipped because they modify files in the bin folder, but I can count on one hand the number of these I use out of over 100 active mods. The only other piece of the puzzle is your My Documents/The Witcher 3 folder that contains input.settings, containing key bindings that some mods need.

 

Here's a full installation guide for running The Witcher 3 with the full baseline of community patching as of March 2021

Edited March 30, 2021 by sc0urge

[gnarly1]

<snippity>

Thank you very much for your response and the link. Highly informative! :yes:

 

It's best to install TW3 mods manually, without any managers. Managers can mess up sometimes, and you'll be confused as to why something isn't working. If you do it all yourself and carefully follow installation instructions, 1) it's less likely something will be messed up in the first place; 2) if something does go wrong, it'll be easier to troubleshoot if you know what *you* did, as opposed to blindly letting a manager handle it

Thanks for your response. This is what some people say about modding Skyrim but I find it hard to agree with them as understanding how the mod manager does things is crucial in avoiding and resolving problems, and, of course, reading mod descriptions is also important. However, I haven't yet started to mod TW3 so I may yet come to agree with you after some experience in modding the game. :smile:

[pokkla]

For what it's worth, I use MO2 to manage TW3 mods. The MO2 programmers added support for TW3 in Feb 2021 with version 2.4.0, so the list of features and abilities is in its infancy. It is sure to grow over time. I have been using MO2 for Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout, etc for years, so it was an easy setup process for TW3.

 

What I like is the clean install for the majority of the mods. It's easy to understand and a mod is in or out with a check mark in the box. I also like that I can save profiles, with profile-specific INI files, for testing or reverting back to a working setup when mess things up. MO2 has a "backup" feature, which creates a list of the mods and whether they are checked or unchecked. Good for reverting to a working set of mods too. I also like that the Witcher Script Merger (WSM) can be put on a one-click icon (has to be manually setup first, but then works great). I also like the direct link with Nexus. Downloading mods is easy, though I imagine the other mod managers do this too.

 

The issues I have with MO2 are the ones sc0urge mentioned above. MO2 can't, yet, handle files that go into \bin and \DLC folders. Those need to be done manually and can be a pain to uninstall. I save original copies of any \bin or \DLC files overwritten so it helps. Same as sc0urge, for me most mods don't have \bin or \DLC files, so it's a minor irritant at this point. I also recently came across an issue with files the WSM can't merge. MO2 does not indicate who the "winner" is when two mods have the same ".w2ent" file. Well, WSM doesn't appear to definitively say either, but I am testing out the "set priority" feature in WSM to see if that is the answer.

[Clooney25]

Thank you so much for your experience report! When I saw that MO2 now supports The Witcher 3, I was thrilled, because MO2 is my beloved Skyrim modding home - best concept, best workflow, best UI. How great would it be to mod The Witcher 3 with it too.

 

According to your information (and the known aspects of the other posts), I will wait for about and continue to rely on TW3MM. I get along well with it and a change would have mainly aesthetic reasons. It's not worth the risk of technical errors.