Preface: I currently only play and mod Bethesda games, so I've only met mod managers a few times recently. In the event that it leads to new ways of doing things that I believe are impossible or difficult in Vortex, I thought I'd post something with a little bit more feedback for Tannin and the team. I never had any real issues after reading the Vortex guides. If my memory serves me correctly, I had been using it since late alpha or early beta up until a few months ago. As I learned more about it, the majority of my "complaints" were resolved, and it worked fairly well out of the box. I can't believe the claims that Vortex's mod doesn't support its use. I've never been unable to use a Vortex mod, even ones that strongly advised against it. Do I have the skills to mod? Maybe. based on my comparisons to others.
I thought Vortex's capability to actually install SKSE, F4SE, and other programs was one of the coolest features once I figured out how to properly modify the installed archives. and manage it from the list of moderators. Yes, Vortex can install the.dll and other files in the base game directory. Although some minor manipulation of the downloaded.zip archive—not the installer version—is required, it works well and may not be suitable for novices. When other mods require files to be placed in the base game folder, managing Nexus-hosted updates and knowing when updates are available becomes much simpler. This also indicates that these kinds of mods are simple to activate and deactivate. You could easily group all script-extender-required mods on and off with the script extender. Even though I haven't tried it, I imagine ENB could be handled in a similar manner if you were careful and knew exactly what you were doing. Again, a cool feature that is not particularly suitable for novices. I rely on MO2. Why? primarily the folder for overrides. It's very helpful to keep the data folder clean as long as I don't mess with it while MO2 is open. When I run a game, MO2 will show me what has been created in the override folder, and a mod creates files for personal configurations created through SkyUI and similar menu systems in the game. I have the option of putting these files in the mod to which they belong or in a personal, unmodified mod created just for the settings of that mod. The settings can withstand mod reinstalls, updates, and other modifications in this manner. The data folder is cleared out because I don't have any files that the mod manager doesn't know where they belong. I need to purge and guess to move non-stock files to the correct mod folder, but I haven't been able to find a way for Vortex to tell me which data folder they are in. To start a new base game in MO2, all I need to do is delete my mods list and create a new profile. For instance, when I use Vortex, my data folder is overflowing with files marked "managed by vortex," empty folders, and other files that Vortex does not recognize as being associated with the mod I've installed and then uninstalled. Are these a hindrance to a new mod build? No. Are these triggers for OCD? Yep! To be honest, not only people with OCD appreciate a neat data folder. If you want to try something new for fun, you can switch between mod managers easily.
That is, in fact, one of my main concerns regarding Vortex: Please delete Vortex-managed files and properly empty the folders when I ask it to delete the entire mod list. When I deactivate or remove a mod, I want the folder that is associated with those linked files to also be deleted if it suddenly becomes empty and is not a stock folder. Before the mod manager, I want a clean data directory free of anything I put there from outside the mod manager after a purge. Another feature I'd love to see in Vortex is a way to browse the data folder and see which files belong to which mod, similar to the data tab in MO2. It's useful, even though I don't use it very often. Without a mod, do you see a script error? You can quickly determine which mod the script comes from by looking for it in MO2's data browser. Simply open each mod in Vortex, or I suppose I could use the command line to locate it; however, the mod manager should make this simple. Also, please let the launch section of the dashboard be resized so I don't have to scroll because there is so much empty space on the horizontal screen. Why not lock and resize the blocks while you're at it—I'm referring to the dashboard as a "block"? The launch section adjustment may be unnecessary if it automatically repositions the launch buttons as the dashboard is resized. Rearranging those launch buttons would also be nice, but I don't recall doing so from the Vortex UI after they were created. If you know how to do anything I mentioned in Vortex, please let me know. I was impressed by Vortex. I simply despise overflowing folders!
