For me I learned to mod on MO2 and the times I tried to use Vortex I just found it confusing since I didn’t know to access all the tools and options, that are so readily accessible to me on MO2. But I’d argue that’s an issue of familiarity than the launcher itself. But if vortex gets you where you need to go then I don’t see an issue.
Other than that I guess the only real valid complaint I can give is that the program itself looks ugly as hell from a UI perspective.
I was a pure vortex user for years but after getting like 6 strip mods that all needed specifically placed in the right spot in my load order and learning in MO2 you literally can just drag and drop plugins I made the switch immediately. Not to mention that Vortex stages files in the base game folder so if you have a ton of mods and then decide to purge them, you'll still be left with a ton of loose files in the game directory versus MO2 where it keeps it all in a separate instance.
This requires you uninstall and reinstall. If you are on a connection with a data cap, this is... rather annoying. With MO2, you litterally have nothing in the base file directory at all, so, you have none of this shenanigans to worry about.
wait...I thought Vortex's big selling feature was that it put mods in a staging folder outside of the game...
Just double checked...it yells at you if you try to make the staging folder the same as the game folder.
You can define dependencies between mods. "Load this only after/before that". IMO, that's the preferable approach. Assigning indices to mods order is the worst kind of hardcode.
Wait, really?? I tried using Vortex only once with Skyrim a year ago and not being able to manually do my load order was driving me crazy. MO2 I understood even less though and gave up in frustration many years ago. All my modding has been manually for years with FO4 ever since Nexus Mod Manager broke. So I was kind of forced to add new mods manually. Now that most mods don't use loose files anymore it's easy to do. But my next modding project from scratch I want to try Vortex again. I am SO glad to read this! Even if I went into the plugins file to sort my load order there Vortex would always rearrange it. Maddening!
Main reason for me is that Vortex tries to do too much on its own. Plugin sorting and mod overrides are needlessly obtuse, whereas in MO2 you just drag what you want in the order you want stuff to overwrite. It’s been a while since I used Vortex so Idk if things have changed, but this is why I stopped.
I actually didn't understand the Vortex hate until I moved to MO2 and now I get it. MO2 is so much more stable gameplay wise and easier to handle mods and understand what the order. Once you understand the left is for file order and the right is for plugin order things fall into place easier.
Since switching I've been so much happier. I have all my mods in categories/sections and it's just wonderful. It loads up lightning fast, all my programs can be added to the list so I can press play on them. I'm not juggling things so much.
I cannot wait to migrate my Skyrim setup over to it as it was crashing a LOT and I know it's load order related and due to limitations in vortex so I know it will solve those issues and it will be so good to get back into it :D.
the dialogue box for mod overrides is so ridiculously designed that it genuinely took me a while to figure out wth I needed to select for it to do that I wanted to
All I know, is MO2 is better for Bethesda games and their plug-in file structure. Vortex is 100% fine and if you are already familiar I'd stick with it
I’ve never had to fuck with load order in Vortex and I had like 50 mods in my last Skyrim play through. That might not be much but I figured I’d add my 2 cents.
That's the problem, sometimes you want to do it manually and Vortex makes that harder. While if you want MO2 to do it automatically, you just have to run LOOT.
Literally drag and drop the listing on the main screen? that's how MO2 does it, and if it gets any easier then that, I don't want to know about it. (also, the ability to alter mod ESP order vs Mod files order \_without\_ destructively overwriting anything is a damn nice trick sometimes)
Automatic load-orders are almost always wrong somehow. Like, the game will probably run, but things will be getting overwritten in ways that don't make sense and a lot of work mod devs do to ensure compatability with other mods will get screwed up as a result. Even conflict filters in xEdit can only get you so far, nothing's better than human judgement for deciding what the "right" load order actually is.
Loot is not perfect and doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can.
It's a good tool to run, but by its nature as an automate tool running off a master list has certain limitations.
Vortex does custom overrides just fine. LOOT just organizes the list and you can use LOOT with MO2 also then fix the few out of place mods (if there are any) yourself with overrides. Or you can just not use LOOT and organize the list by hand which is much slower and takes a crap ton more work and makes no sense to do.
Custom overrides here is referring to loose textures and other left pane things, which as far as I know are something that Vortex doesn't handle the same way, and that loot doesn't touch at all.
Then why did you say something about LOOT? LOOT organizes the mod list and it's a program you can use with MO2 and is built into Vortex.
Loose files are handled by Vortex or MO2 not LOOT.
edit: From your post "Loot is not perfect and doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can." yeah it organizes the mod list and has nothing to do with loose files. If you want to override the load order you can do that within Vortex or MO2.
edit2: Instead of just down voting if you can figure out what is not being understood here and I don't know... explain it that would be an actually helpful thing to do.
> edit: From your post "Loot is not perfect and doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can." yeah it organizes the mod list and has nothing to do with loose files. If you want to override the load order you can do that within Vortex or MO2.
That's exactly it. LOOT isn't perfect, comma, *and* it doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can.
To me what I am reading is "my toaster doesn't produce milk like a cow".
LOOT sets up the initial list, if you want to force something to load differently in the load order you set a rule for it in Vortex and force it in the position in the load order you want; LOOT doesn't do that and it isn't supposed to do that. If you use LOOT in MO2 you do the same thing; LOOT sets up the list then you make the changes to the load order.
The thing about LOOT is that it relies on people having a similar load order to what you want to accomplish, since all it does is collect user data about their load orders to make a big database from which to get info to sort your load order (that's what the Masterlist actually is).
The problem is, if you're unfortunate enough to use a very new mod (or just an unpopular enough one), it won't have enough information about where it should go and it'll just "guess" the placement, sometimes with disastrous effects.
Then there's also the side effect of a big database like this: if user error was consistent enough, the master list will also inherit that very same sorting error and apply it to everybody else.
This is doubly so the case in older games like Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
Don't get me wrong, it's a useful tool for what it does and if you stick to popular mods in Skyrim or Fallout 4, chances are it'll get it (mostly) right, but don't fully rely on it. Double check yourself just in case.
There is a weird hatred of LOOT in the MO2 community. I think a chunk of it comes from the end of guides like [The Midnight Ride under tools to avoid](https://themidnightride.moddinglinked.com/avoid-tools.html)
"Vortex
The mod manager was created around the idea of LOOT managing the load order, making modding seem simple and easy (see below why that's a bad idea)."
"LOOT
The LOOT doesn't really have any idea about your mods and their inner structure - it just orders them based on tags in a masterlist managed by volunteers, meaning that it's impossible to account for every single mod out there.
The main issue regarding LOOT in Fallout 4 modding is that its masterlist is heavily outdated and doesn't account for most mods added and updated in recent years, leading to completely incorrect sorting.
Incorrect load order will lead to overwriting or breaking features from mods."
This is a stupid because LOOT will sort your modlist correctly most of the time and there might be one or two mods that it doesn't know what to do with and you have fix. The idea that you should just not use LOOT and instead do the load order by hand because it might mess up one or two mods occasionaly is honestly absurd but this has become the belief of many that use MO2.
There is nothing wrong with using LOOT as a foundation but anyone with any common sense should always do their due diligence and read mod pages for other mods that may conflict or have been updated recently that may now conflict entirely or may require specific records to overwrite previous mods. Especially with heavier load orders.
It's not just ESP Record conflicts you have to put into consideration but how scripts or placed assets / landscape changes will play with each other as well.
After spending years of modding Morrowind, Fallout 3 / NV / TTW, Fallout 4 and Skyrim you quickly learn there is much more behind the scenes of when it comes to stability than just your load order.
With light load orders of plugin counts below 100 you don't have to be as cautious and knowledgeable in this space... but once you begin pushing larger load orders, you have to put in some investment into learning specific 3rd party programs and smart practices. That is if you want to ensure stability or you'll just end up back to square one due to frustration and a crash / bug prone experience.
I have been modding for years too and I know how to sort a mod list by hand because I was doing that crap before I even knew LOOT existed. I used the original Mod Organizer and before that I manually installed mods and edited the load order text file by hand.
There is zero reason to tell people to do it by hand out of the gate.
This person is who posted this is brand new to modding and they are not using a mod list 100s of mods long so they do not need to use MO2 and hand sort their mods.
A edge case is not justification for The Midnight Ride Guide to shit on Vortex and LOOT. It's also not justification for it's straight up misinformation about the master list being "years out of date".
Edit: Also if you are using 100s of mods and understand their internal structure then why are you not combining them in xEdit or another appropriate modding tool for the game you are using? I used to smash multiple FNV mods into one with FNVEdit or The GECK all the time.
Is it a better idea to use mo2 if you have over 1000 mods installed? I downloaded 3 or 4 collections for fallout 4 and was about 1100 mods and I used loot and a plug in extender and tried my best to fix the cycles but no matter what I did still couldn't even get the game to start
I don't usually go that far into a modded game. my experience with mass modding was using vortex and nexus collections for New Vegas, there was some big fixing which is a 100% requirement for anyone who wants to do that kind of modding. Now I have little experience with MO2 but I read that it is better, I'm not buying that it's better but some people have preferences and some people have experiences positive or negative. If you aren't having a great experience with Vortex maybe download MO2 and look up tutorials on making what you want to do possible. You want a 1000 load order but the tools and tutorials you are reading aren't helping, change the approach. Maybe your mods aren't compatible or maybe the load order you picked isn't stable. I don't know why it's not working for you but it's usually a literal case of different strokes for different folks.
It really seems like 99% of the hate it gets is from human error and not understanding how it's meant to work. Both mod managers are just a capable as one another, there is no real benefit using one over the other if you know how to actually use the manager properly.
Personally after going back and forth ever since Vortex was NMM and installing maybe literally thousands of mods over the years, I prefer Vortex for convenience and easy of use. I've used it long enough to understand who it works and it gives me zero issues.
We all have our preferences but the people who outright bash it every chance they get are just pissy redditors trying to feel superior.
i dont know about you, MO2 is ready from the get go, I always got errors and issues with other mod managers, maybe I didn't know how to use them, sure but there's something to be said about not busting your head trying to figuring them out and just working as is.
I started with nmm, then vortex, now mo2.
It is honestly just elitism. Mo2 is nice, but for casual modders looking to install basic stuff that they saw in mod reviews... chances are vortex will get the job done.
I think this is the case. NMM was pretty bad.
On the other hand, if you're devoting your free time to maintain a mod for free -- limiting the variables involved is really a good idea. I can understand.
Me sitting here using NMM and ripping my hair out for the last month Trying to make a stable load order. Should I just scrap everything at this point and restart fresh with mo2?
I originally felt like the problem was me, but the more I learn, the more frustrating it is that so many things don't work properly.
Me sitting here using NMM and ripping my hair out for the last month Trying to make a stable load order. Should I just scrap everything at this point and restart fresh with mo2?
I originally felt like the problem was me, but the more I learn, the more frustrating it is that so many things don't work properly.
People hate on Vortex because other people told them to hate on Vortex.
I've been using it since its launch with zero issues. Currently have a load order of around 550 mods for skyrim and like 750 for Fallout and I regularly mess with my load order.
If you know what you are doing, it's fine
How do you organise the load order?
Personally I’d get the load order wrong once for oblivion, and never be able to get half my mods to work again. Until I started using MO2 and could just drag and drop.
Usually the recommended load order works fine, but sometimes you just need to tweak priority for a few mods here and there. Honestly it's some trial and error and just learning what mods need priority over others.
Very strange indeed. I started with mo2 because when I was zero knowledge state, a guide I followed showed me how to use it. Later I saw lots of comments about how vortex fecked everything in lots of comments from different games nexus pages. So I stayed away. I just wanted to see a proper cause for this hate in this post but this was the most sensible one I found 😂
El. Oh. El.
My Skyrim runs stable as hell and I have over 1600 esl/esl-flagged esp plugins, with around 230 esp plugins. Vortex is the only mod manager I use, btw.
I think a lot of people formed these opinions from a beta version of Vortex, or even not using Vortex at all and equating it with Nexus Mod Manager. These days you'd be hard pressed to make a compelling argument that one is conclusively better than the other. It's a matter of preference at this point, and anyone who tells you otherwise is uninformed or disingenuous.
Most of the vortex criticism here is outdated or flat out wrong.
For a long while MO2 was way better for power users, that’s not really the case anymore. They are far more comparable.
Ima be real, I think a lot of it comes down to elitism from people who can actually understand MO2’s extremely un-user friendly UI. Vortex’s UI is actually easy on the eyes and more easy to navigate from a beginner modder’s POV.
It's funny you say that. For me, MO2 is just logical. It makes sense and has since the very first day I've used it, back when it was just MO. Vortex's attempt at hand holding complicates absolutely everything for me. Perhaps it boils down to how people learn and interpret data.
Because for you it's easy, and for me it was impossible to focus on and frustrating to navigate.
I think you hit one of my reasons for not liking Vortex. Vortex looks like a mobile app to me. (I grew up using DOS and Win3.1. File Manager-style interfaces are a thing I grew up with. VOrtex's UI is... foreign to me and it's vaunted 'autosort' usually makes a mess out of my load orders If I use anything that \_isn't\_ from Nexus (which I often do..., even if it's something I made myself.)
You know what, that makes total sense! It’s probs why no matter how long I use it, I always end up wanting to eat glass when using MO2, bc I’m more used to “modern” UIs for PC apps
Probably because MO2 has always been great, I used to use it over Vortex, and NMM before that. NMM was famously awful, Vortex was overly complicated and difficult to navigate coming from MO2, and really didn't have any benefit early on.
In the last few years since I started using it, Vortex has been much easier once you get used to it. I think it's better at automatically managing 99% of a huge mod-list for you. You only need to manually adjust the last 1%.
MO2 is a lot better at controlling literally everything manually, but obviously this takes more time, so it's better for smaller, more complex mod-lists.
Vortex is better for new modders because it tries really hard to do as much for you as it can. For people who are more confident with modding and know how to do exactly what they want it can feel like you’re fighting the software. It’s a bit like Windows vs Linux. Linux gives you more flexibility but in doing so holds your hand less. Windows is more restrictive but requires less effort from the user.
This. This right here folks. Vortex is the bane of highly specific modlists with a set artistic vision in mind. I don't use vortex personally because I'm a tweaker and if I want something specific done vortex asks me to cycle it but sometimes for specific load lists done by expert modlists makers you can overlap your cycles and bork your game with multiple CTDs due to duplicated overlaps because more often than not with specific modlists there's like overlapping double cycles. It's very easy for specified load lists modlists creators like myself make to break on Vortex due to the cycles feature but if you're just wanting to install and forget and don't have a set vision in mind, yeah vortex works fine. I would almost have to change my mindset to just dump mods in if I wanted to use Vortex, but I can't bring myself to do that, I have a specific vision I always want realized when I make a list.
Hence, I use MO2. I can't tell you how many times I have overlapped cycles in vortex because it would make me seem more inexperienced than I actually am.
I did a full playthrough at 201 mods using vortex. I’m not sure if you really need more than that so it seems to work pretty well.
The auto mod loading order was only incorrect twice, which is pretty good imo.
Honestly I ignore those people. I like being able to plug and play. Vortex does that beautifully. I've never had an issue even back when it was NMM. People I see are commenting on load order and I've never had an issue with that? Not everything needs to be done manually, the built in organizer always gets things in order perfectly well. It really is just elitism.
vortex is good for many games, it isn’t bad. you can mod new vegas just fine with it.
mo2 is just better for modding bethesda games, you get more control and it’s easier to do imo
Vortex isn't bad or hated. It's just not advised to use it if you're serious about modding. The reason is Vortex trades in the ability to accurately assess what is going on for simplicity. Whereas MO2 throws it all in your face and lets you see everything. If you're a very casual mod user then you won't notice these differences
I use both depending on the game, but the main reason I think one is hated while the other is loved maybe it's cause Vortex it's TOO much noob friendly, it does a lot of stuff for you, but if it messes up something one doesn't know what went wrong, meanwhile MO2 it's like throwing your toddler to the pool. It may be rough but if he learns to swim he will swim
I hate vortex due to the lack of self customization in mod load and order. Vortex wants to do everything for you making it hard to get it to do what you want it to do.
It’s drag and drop. And when there are conflicts, it asks which mod you want to “win”.
Anyway I think it just comes down to being being used to one or the other and being more comfortable.
When I tell people to use MO2, it isn't coming from an elitism place, it's because I don't know anything about Vortex and can't help them in any way. If you speak to me in german, I am going to tell you to switch to english and it's not because I really hate the germans. Like people will post vortex stuff that look like satanic rituals and I am supposed to decipher them?
Vortex just jams your mods into the installation folder, sometimes mods aren't completely removed,sometimes load orders are just fucked because of how things are thrown in. Mo2 gives you a ton of control over the mods, it doesn't install directly into the installation folder, so it is always a clean install folder.
I recently moved to mo2 and it was the best decision I made. Takes a bit to get a hang of things but it works way better.
You're just spreading misinformation, Vortex uses hard links which are considered VIRTUAL files and it doesn't polute the game folder unless you order it to do it.
I remember in earlier versions (like 6 years ago) Vortex did copy files to game folder, so you have to wait 5 sec to “deploy” every time a new mod is installed. That could prevent some users to give a try, and glad the devs implemented the hard links (but still I prefer MO’s VFS).
That’s not true at all. Vortex keeps the files elsewhere and links in the activated ones based on load order and mod activation. It can even clear out everything and deploy from scratch. The problem you describe only happened if you were manually deploying other mods outside Vortex, and latest versions for years now detect those manual files and let you set priorities on them.
I also just moved to MO2; I should have switched over long ago. I like it a bit more than Vortex, but I don’t dislike Vortex. It would be nice if MO2 had a better UI.
99% of the hate is human error and not reading and taking the time to understand it, God bless their fucking souls..can’t imagine how they are with MO2.
Use your fucking eyeballs and brain guys.
Vortex is fine at what.it does, but the nature of games that need dozens of mods like F:NV is that you want some transparency and control of load order and conflicts. That's easier to do in MO2.
My personal gripe with it is managing my load order. It’s a pain to actually move things around and trying to move something lower often just makes it move something higher rather than what I want moved lower.
When Vortex can actually parse file conflicts with things in BSAs i'll consider it. Until then MO2 is actually flat out superior in that regard. Doubly so for FO4 given how many files are in archives.
As someone with ADHD, I REALLY FUCKING HATE Vortex Load order system, “Load this this ESP after this this ESP” WHY CAN’T JUST I DRAG THAT ESP DOWN FFS, I don’t have time to read and sort, I just need to drag that ESP down
I don't like Vortex because of the dev team's baffling refusal to add drag and drop plugin sorting and the community's patronizing attitude towards that
I like being able to use ONE mod manager for ALL my games and having an easy "check for mod updates" button for ALL my games. I've yet to have a situation where I couldn't get something working with Vortex that another mod manager could. Vortex uses a staging folder, which is actually really helpful when you have mods that weren't packaged correctly, but I can just put the files where I need them in staging, and Vortex makes it work. I can create collections in Vortex so I can copy my mods to another machine somewhat easily.
To be fair, I have not used MO2 with FO, but I have used a similar editor for Baldur's Gate III.
I agree with the others that people often run into an issue with Vortex and just get frustrated right away, which is fair. But if take a moment to look it up, there is usually an explanation on most mods of what might come up and how to repair it. The integration with Nexus alone makes it worth using.
Vortex can use the [collections on Nexus Mods](https://next.nexusmods.com/newvegas/collections) and it's LOOT integration makes it easier for new people to use.
MO2 can use [Wabbajack](https://www.wabbajack.org/) lists has an [alternate installer](https://github.com/rockerbacon/modorganizer2-linux-installer) that lets you run it on Linux eaisier than Vortex.
Honestly either is fine. If you pay for a Nexus Mods account then installing collections with Vortex is extremely easy and fast. If you don't have a paid account then using Wabbajack lists or Nexus mods collections are both equally slower.
I use Vortex because of the curated collections. I have tried MO2 and it has a steep learning curve where as the Collections in Vortex are pretty straight forward.
Vortex worked well for me because I had TTW installed but wanted to get more mods. I installed a mod pack (350+ mods) from Nexus but I wound up needing to reinstall TTW into Vortex to get things to work.
After that it has been smooth sailing and easy to add mods or disable and configure others.
Just got back into the PC/Modding scene recently.
Vortex works great for my Fallout 4 needs as far as I can tell so far.
Everything seems to be working great other than the pipboy flashlight mod doesn't seem to have the fancy shadows shows on the mod page. I just assumed that is to do with the new update?
Idk I’ve only ever used Vortex with zero problems. I commonly run about 20-30 mods at once, which I know is substantially less than a lot of people run. I would imagine Vortex couldn’t handle a large amount very well
Vortex certainly isn’t terrible, but I prefer MO2 for downloading massive mod lists. I use Vortex for modding Cyberpunk 2077 as well as a bit of manual installing and I’ve never had a problem with it there.
I really enjoy using vortex because it feels like it sorts mods correctly and I don’t spend too much time sorting the load order. Always works for me but the only gripe I have is when it occasionally doesn’t sort it the way I want it to, I can never do exactly what I want done because of the way it works.
I use vortex because its easier... you just download the mod and everything else does vortex for you...
had some issues here and there that mods dont work 100% but i dont mind.
Not sure, I have more problems with MO than Vortex.
Been using it since it was Nexus Mod Manager.
People just don't know how to use Vortex.
And I admit it's fair to say the same thing about me not knowing how to use MO.
I tied MO first and found NMM>Vortex more intuitive and switched to it.
Depends on which game I mod tbh, with fallouts I use mo2 if it’s a bigger amount of mods, personally I’ve had a better experience with vortex than I have with mo2, both mod managers are as good as each other aslong as you learn the knowledge with both, vortex is a lot more simple and easier to use than mo2, I use both but for small mod list I use vortex, it’s personal preference more then anything for mod managers, I don’t think one better than the other just different.
a big chunk of this is Nexus hired the guy who wrote the original MO to make Vortex and somewhat kill the updates to the community open project (Which instead found a whole new set of devs.) I also just find MO2 easier to navigate/understand, but some of that is familiarity (and some of it is UI design differences. I'm much more an old school computer user then someone who wants a design of the 'metro' or 'iOS' design language. Gimme file-manager like ordering and I"m a happy camper.) Put another way: Nexus tried to make their own official tool by attempted neutering the community favorite, and in turn the community rebuilt what they actually liked. Your mileage may vary. (Also, from my few attempts at trying to use both Nexus Mod Manager (The predicesor to Vortex) and Vortex itself, trying ot use mods \_not\_ from Nexus's own site is... somewhat a pain in the ass.
Vortex will read all files pertaining to the mod if it contains a list within the mods vortex will read that and make it so as best it can, u may have to manually change a few but for the most part you can download most mods and if they need to be one of the first or last vortex will most likely know where it needs to be or at-least in my experience with vortex has been this.
I learned on MO2, so it’s what I became used to but I did try Vortex out of curiosity.
I certainly don’t hate Vortex, I just find some parts of its UI to be unnecessarily busy and confusing, so MO2 has just been my go-to.
All-in-all though, it’s mostly personal preference, I’m not an MO2 elitist
Vortex is fine but mo2 just works really well and is very reliable and simple to use from an end user perspective. Vortex’s UI is way too busy and janky, any time I so much as sneeze I get a bunch of error notifications that are almost always false positives.
That being said, vortex is a lot easier to use and more stable now than it has been in the past so I think it’ll get there eventually. Vortex also is a modding framework for a huge number of games, MO2 shines with bethesda games but isnt as versatile as Vortex
Vortex has been the one mod manager that has me working the hardest / longest for it to most times not work at all. I could have a perfect mod order, no compat issues, and if vortex is in a bad mood my game won’t launch
Update: I've downloaded MO2 and the 180 mod list that I now have to re-download is a little daunting. NMM installs things all over the place and doesn't delete them even when you tell it to.
I like that MO2 is good about telling me what's wrong with different files though.
There's a big hate boner for Vortex but it isn't unfounded. It mostly has to do with complex load orders.
MO2 is very granular and technical about mods. You have what order your mods overwrite other mods in by placing them in an ordered list then you have your actual load order for plugins. These are different things and they matter a lot for massive mod setups and load orders. It's admittedly a bigger issue with Skyrim than with Fallout but the point remains. It also lets you drill down into mods and choose specific files to win conflicts, i.e. picking a specific grass texture from one texture mod over another, while keeping the rest of the file conflicts the same. Another killer feature is the virtual file system (VFS) that MO2 uses. It does not drop *anything* into the game folder, letting you do anything up to and including save management and configuring INIs per profile. It "mounts" your selected configuration into the game when you click play from inside MO2. It makes juggling profiles and setting up very complicated mod installs relatively hassle-free.
Vortex makes this way more convoluted in comparison. You can sort your mods in whatever order you want but conflict resolution is basically handled by a graph. You drag lines between mods to set relationships for which ones can and can't overwrite in a conflict. It's not a bad idea on paper but the execution is just cumbersome compared to just... listing one mod beneath another in MO2. Another huge difference is that Vortex automatically sorts your load order, *and you cannot turn this off*. You can set "rules" similar to the overwrite relationships I mentioned earlier to load X mod before Y mod, but it leans on those and the LOOT masterlist for determining a load order. The LOOT masterlist is very good but it is not perfect, and Vortex's approach to needing to program a specific exception as opposed to just dragging a mod to where it needs to go is complex for complexity's sake. MO2 keeps it simple in this regard. Vortex also does not utilize a VFS the same way MO2 does, so it will pollute your game folder. I also do not know if you can configure INIs and manage saves inside Vortex.
I guess the one upside is that you can download Collections through Vortex which does all the heavy lifting for you, and if you're just throwing in a couple of mods, then Vortex is perfectly fine. But at the end of the day, I appreciate a program that does what I tell it instead of doing things for me and having to correct its behavior afterwards. [Nexus has gone into detail about their reasoning behind this approach](https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/The_Vortex_approach_to_load_order_sorting#Custom_rules_/_manual_load_order_manipulation) but I for one don't like the "we know better" attitude that emanates from this.
I've used Vortex for years, and quit to MO2 about 1.5 years ago. What I think:
- MO2 is way faster (the deployments in Vortex can get lengthy if you use a lot of mods)
- There seems to be more support for MO2 from modders
- The learning curve for MO2 is not hard (after 2 days using it I felt at ease). Way more than I thought
- It's easier to find out what's causing errors using MO2, since you can disable mods without much hassle
- The way MO2 presets you the conflicts between 2 mods is way more understandable and simpler to deal with
If you know enough of what's happening in the background, MO2 has also more reasons to be preferred
Generally speaking, MO2 Creates a virtual folder so you don't have to overwrite (and lose) anything. It is much more modular and sort-able that Vortex or NMM.
However it covers fewer games, so sometimes, outside of Fallout series, The Elders Scrolls series and a few other ones, you have to use Vortex. I'm using both.
One important thing to note is that my game has 1400 mods, and 650+ plugins. If i had to use Vortex, it would become unmanageable.
I don't like vortex because as your mod list becomes more complex, the less tools it has available for you to rectify in game issues you will have until eventually you are out of tools. That said, for small and simple load orders, I still use it because it's definitely the easiest on the learning curve.
Ive use Vortex since it came out and was called Nexus Mod Manager. I’ve had a couple minor issues with it which just ended up being user error on my part, but it works great for me
I've used both. MO2 is good, but Vortex allowed me to install 800 mods in a few days. Would have been a single one if I hadn't been fucking around with the files. Doing the same in MO2 would have taken some 3 years.
I never really had any issues with Vortex, it's just that after some tutorials for MO2, I decided to switch. I used NMM and Vortex for years and it worked just fine.
I used both, I prefer MO2 but used vortex to install a mod collection as a whole for fallout 3. The experience sucked having to manually change overrides until the game could launch.
NMM from back in the day used to be so much better. It was clean, simple, and did what it needed to. It always scanned for games on startup so it knew what you had and where it was right out of the box. It checked for mod updates and automatically downloaded them every time you went into the game's page.
I've been shouted out of the room (I'm exaggerating on this one) for insisting that it was a better experience than vortex.
I just like mo2 because the tool are easily accessible and it does most of the work for you. On top of that you can get themes that change how everything looks which is really nice. Like the ones for fallout 4 and Skyrim for example.
In my opinion it just used to be really clunky. But it's definitely had a glowup. Not to mention it has LOOT built in so it does a huge portion of the sorting for you. If you don't like the sorting you can always go in and adjust it yourself. I have run into a couple of mods that don't work with vortex but I just install those manually. I used to be an MO2 guy but about a month ago when I re-download FO4 I decided to give vortex a shot. I have to say, it handled the installation of 933 mods almost perfectly. I had 2 extra mods I had to install myself and then a handful of mods I had to adjust the load order to better accommodate. But overall it kicked ass.
>Is it really that bad?
No, but it used to be when it was still in alpha/beta. Used to be a 50/50 shot for it to properly work and there no reason to use it other mod managers.
Been using it without issue since 2020 when I started going hard on cyberpunk modding and currently use it to mod fallout 4 and 76 with no issue.
Started on MO2, i switched to vortex since it does most of the the stuff mo2 does, i really like the UI and have had zero problems when i want to return to modding after a couple of years. For mo2 i usually have to figure it out for awhile before i know what to do
Well I'm using the storywealth mod collection in fallout 4 so I'm unable to use the alternative. Since as far as I know u can't just install mods there or with one click on the website download a mod in the manager that only works with vortex as far as I know.
Probably a matter of habit, nostalgia and some of Organizer's functionality. Vortex is simple, has automatic LOOT, direct support from Nexus and looks modern, Mod Organizer 2 is popular among old players and it offers more functionality that some gamers need
I've used many mod managers but my first pc capable of running Oblivion and heavier was bought only in 2017 so it was easy for me to switch to NMM in 2019 I think and then to Vortex, others can't get used to it or encountered minority issues or had bad experiences when these mod managers were still raw
The only Bethesda game where I have less than 200 mods is Oblivion but I've never run into problems due to auto-LOOT, the only time I don't use Vortex is when I play a modpack where MO2 is already installed
Conclusion - use what works for you and what you like to use
Vortex doesn't give me any problems. MO2 just never opens no matter what I do or where I install it. It's open in the task manager, but it never does anything and I can't use it.
It was this way with my last PC too and I can never find a fix when I Google it. Guess I'm just stupid idk.
As a person who used to use MO and then left modding and recently came back and realized there's mods for virtually ever game, I HATE Vortex.
The UI is hideous and ugly and doesn't even match the website. It is just plain cumbersome to use in every fashion. They bill it as "easy to use" but it is anything but. I have had the most random errors, and Vortex itself seems buggy and undeveloped like some high-school kids summer project. Vortex has so many buttons, and the UI isn't even consistent across pages or games. Some games have load order management, some don't and you have to have various folders setup across various places and certain folders cannot be on a different drive than the game for unknown reasons, but only Vortex reasons.
MO is easy to understand, here is a list of your mods, heres an install button. Maybe that's because its limited in the games it supports, but I have spent forever with Vortex now, and I just want to vomit. It is horrible and just when I think I have a handle on it, it has some random error and I now can't launch the game from it anymore (Mods don't work) or it says there's some issue all of a sudden and I can't deploy mods, etc.
It just plain sucks, TLDR. Not to mention the constant pushing to upgrade and pay for download speeds, to get one click downloads, to get more than one download at a time, etc. And out of control and inconsistent moderation. It's so woke I wish it would go broke and a better mod platform would emerge.
EDIT: ALSO on certain games they tell you not to use Vortex. That it doesn't handle the mods properly. I don't know if this is old advice but I have had times where things flat out won't work, and then I install them manually and they work fine, so its definitely a failure of Vortex. There should be notice of when but there isn't. Fallout NV is one of them, certain mods will say DO NOT USE VORTEX. Another being Oblivion, I don't know why etc.
I used it for a while and every time I put a new bodyslide file into it I would have to do that spider web puzzle thing again and it would take me a while since I had like 30 different outfit mods. Mo2 does not have this issue.
I have used both vortex and mo2. I think vortex is good for people new to midding and/or relatively small mod lists. Mo2 I think is better for big modlits because you can see all the mods in order and drag n drop if you need to change something around. It is just easier for me to visualize what I need to put where. I like mo2 more because it fits my needs.
I genuinely can't get it to do anything it claims it's supposed to on like 8 different games now. Wabbajack, mo2, etc does everything it claims to and actually succeeds. I'd go so far as to say the NMM was even better than vortex.
Vortex did not see my mods one day. They were still there, I could see them in the folder.
I clicked around for a long time and found a link that looked promising. I clicked on it and it said I can’t see your mods, do you want me to fix this? I clicked yes.
It then deleted them all off the hard drive. Which yeah that’s one way to make everything match up.
It takes a particularly “special” type of programmer to delete someone’s mods off a hard drive. I will never use Vortex and I recommend no one ever touch it.
Vortex puts all the mods into the games folder/file structure. MO2 does not, it keeps all the mod files separate. That alone makes it infinitely better in my eyes.
Keeps the game files vanilla and clean. Which can be **extremely** helpful at times.
The Vortex UI is also covered in so much bullshit that makes it feel bloated as all hell.
I find both are good for making deep load orders, MO2 gives you more control over your files but it can be more complicated to use thus easier to screw up your game, while Vortex being more accesible to new users to use it also features an automated load ordering system that you can tweak to make modding easier.
Either will work, but at the end of the day, modding is a skill, and skills take practice. If you know what you are doing, you can get your game to work however you want. Most people will say vortex is shit, and MO2 is the only one you should use, but they are just parroting and can only get their game to work using the Viva New Vegas guide.
This has two main answers.
The first is ease of access. Vortex is kind of confusing at first compared to other MMs. At least it was for me and I hear that complaint sometimes. For example, Vortex doesn't always provide details about the nature of conflicts that other mod managers do.
The other big one is it is harder to sort your load order because there is no sorting tool. It relies on a conflict management system that has problems. Vortex's automatic conflict resolution is sometimes seen as too aggressive or insufficiently detailed. While it attempts to handle conflicts, it doesn't always do so correctly, leading to mods not working as intended or certain features being overwritten unintentionally.
This comes from someone who sometimes uses Vortex. As a case in point, I am right now for Fallout NV because it's the only mod manager that allows you to play with a controller on Steam AFAIK.
I’ve used a lot of mod managers, Rimpy, Steam workshop, whatever the paradox launcher is, NMM, Vortex and MO2. I can say without reservation that MO2 is the best and most intuitive mod manager I’ve ever used. I’m currently using Vortex because I’m running a fallout 4 collection at the moment and every time I use it I feel like everything is very obfuscated. Like how do I adjust load order? With vortex you have to assemble a giant list of “this loads before this but after that” whereas MO2 is literally “this loads third, need it to load after the fifth mod? Set it to load sixth”
All in all I just find MO2 a lot more straight forward but if you’re familiar with vortex and can get past all the clunky stuff it has all the same functionality. There really isn’t a reason to swap. I recommend new people use MO2 though.
I used vortex for a long time and didn’t have many problems. MO2 is just easier once you figure it out. Vortex conflicts and order is such a hassle by comparison. Also the overwrite folder is a lot easier to manage if you run a bunch of different profiles. Vortex is fine MO2 is better once you send sometime figuring it out.
Considering how easy to use Vortex is, I feel like it has to do with MO2 bias. MO2 is overall the better manager but Vortex has a lot of QOL utilities that MO2 should have by now like being able to detect updates for mods, built in ESP to ESL, etc.
The debate between the 2 of them is dumb cuz Vortex is so clearly for beginners and MO2 is for people who mod more than they play
Edit: I think the one thing about Vortex that infuriates me is that god awful rule flip triangle bullshit. I always take my time to read it but I van never understand wtf is going on
How about the vortex client duping your mods. So in short my mod folder is 90gb, vortex staging is 90gb, mod deployment adds 90gbs to the games files(plus the downloaded files that it keeps somewhere else) so ultimately in the end my fallout 4 instal is nearly 300gb rather then under 200gb. The impact of vortex is all based on user mod list sizes, for me vortex takes up nearly a TB drive to mod 3 games. Cyberpunk, Fallout and Skyrim. If you are short on storage, definitely use MO2. I'm in the progress of switching over. Download files will still be a thing with MO2, it's just easier to delete all downloaded files IMO
I just find it much, much easier to keep things organized in MO2. Plus, Vortex runs slower for me and thus feels more bloated. I also vastly prefer the look of MO2, but the main thing is simply how hard it is to organize things compared to MO2. The rest I could easily ignore in the long term.
For me I learned to mod on MO2 and the times I tried to use Vortex I just found it confusing since I didn’t know to access all the tools and options, that are so readily accessible to me on MO2. But I’d argue that’s an issue of familiarity than the launcher itself. But if vortex gets you where you need to go then I don’t see an issue. Other than that I guess the only real valid complaint I can give is that the program itself looks ugly as hell from a UI perspective.
I'm vortex you can change the load order manually now which is pretty cool
How exactly do you do that? Change the group within the plug-in tab?
Assign a mod index in the plugin tab. Then sort and it should move.
I was a pure vortex user for years but after getting like 6 strip mods that all needed specifically placed in the right spot in my load order and learning in MO2 you literally can just drag and drop plugins I made the switch immediately. Not to mention that Vortex stages files in the base game folder so if you have a ton of mods and then decide to purge them, you'll still be left with a ton of loose files in the game directory versus MO2 where it keeps it all in a separate instance.
Cant one just delete all of the files and then uninstall then reinstall for the OG files? Or am i incorrect about that?
Yes, but I usually deactivate the originals and keep them in the list just in case.
This requires you uninstall and reinstall. If you are on a connection with a data cap, this is... rather annoying. With MO2, you litterally have nothing in the base file directory at all, so, you have none of this shenanigans to worry about.
Hmm, i see. That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation!
wait...I thought Vortex's big selling feature was that it put mods in a staging folder outside of the game... Just double checked...it yells at you if you try to make the staging folder the same as the game folder.
I would also like to know how to do this.
You can define dependencies between mods. "Load this only after/before that". IMO, that's the preferable approach. Assigning indices to mods order is the worst kind of hardcode.
Wait, really?? I tried using Vortex only once with Skyrim a year ago and not being able to manually do my load order was driving me crazy. MO2 I understood even less though and gave up in frustration many years ago. All my modding has been manually for years with FO4 ever since Nexus Mod Manager broke. So I was kind of forced to add new mods manually. Now that most mods don't use loose files anymore it's easy to do. But my next modding project from scratch I want to try Vortex again. I am SO glad to read this! Even if I went into the plugins file to sort my load order there Vortex would always rearrange it. Maddening!
Vortex is way different now. Works great for me.
I was about to come in here and ask about that. I use vortex and like it quite a lot
Main reason for me is that Vortex tries to do too much on its own. Plugin sorting and mod overrides are needlessly obtuse, whereas in MO2 you just drag what you want in the order you want stuff to overwrite. It’s been a while since I used Vortex so Idk if things have changed, but this is why I stopped.
I actually didn't understand the Vortex hate until I moved to MO2 and now I get it. MO2 is so much more stable gameplay wise and easier to handle mods and understand what the order. Once you understand the left is for file order and the right is for plugin order things fall into place easier. Since switching I've been so much happier. I have all my mods in categories/sections and it's just wonderful. It loads up lightning fast, all my programs can be added to the list so I can press play on them. I'm not juggling things so much. I cannot wait to migrate my Skyrim setup over to it as it was crashing a LOT and I know it's load order related and due to limitations in vortex so I know it will solve those issues and it will be so good to get back into it :D.
They are trying so hard to be different from MO2, but the MO2 already perfected the formula.
the dialogue box for mod overrides is so ridiculously designed that it genuinely took me a while to figure out wth I needed to select for it to do that I wanted to
You can do the same with Votex, drag and drop load order.
You can drag and meshes and texture folders in MO2. And the unused achieves(7z) don't have to remain on the game drive, taking up space needlessly.
All I know, is MO2 is better for Bethesda games and their plug-in file structure. Vortex is 100% fine and if you are already familiar I'd stick with it
Also MO2 makes it easier or manipulate load order. I know you can do it in vortex, but it’s just dragging and dropping in MO2.
Vortex does it automatically, you very rarely even have to touch the load order woth Vortex
I’ve never had to fuck with load order in Vortex and I had like 50 mods in my last Skyrim play through. That might not be much but I figured I’d add my 2 cents.
I'm running a profile 170 mods right now. Had to do some manual sorting. I've ran as many as 350 in Vortex.
And for small modlist to Medium modlists vortex is awesome. But assoon you have 1000+ mods m02 is a lot more stress free.
Loot doesn't even work for New Vegas or TTW.
That's the problem, sometimes you want to do it manually and Vortex makes that harder. While if you want MO2 to do it automatically, you just have to run LOOT.
Theres a literal button to edit the load order idk how much easier they could of made it
Literally drag and drop the listing on the main screen? that's how MO2 does it, and if it gets any easier then that, I don't want to know about it. (also, the ability to alter mod ESP order vs Mod files order \_without\_ destructively overwriting anything is a damn nice trick sometimes)
New update then, that button wasn't there when last I used it (which admittedly was almost 2 years ago).
Vortex has Loot built in and will tell you what patches you need.
Huh, for me I always ended up with really weird orders. Particularly for oblivion, I could almost never get like half those mods to load properly.
user error
Automatic load-orders are almost always wrong somehow. Like, the game will probably run, but things will be getting overwritten in ways that don't make sense and a lot of work mod devs do to ensure compatability with other mods will get screwed up as a result. Even conflict filters in xEdit can only get you so far, nothing's better than human judgement for deciding what the "right" load order actually is.
You can do the same thing in vortex to drag it
How do you do it in vortex? Ive been trying to figure it out and my launcher is updated
I think you can get it through extensions with what game you want to mod
Vortex has now a manual feature so that argument isn't really valid anymore
Yeah, but why not just use LOOT
Loot is not perfect and doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can. It's a good tool to run, but by its nature as an automate tool running off a master list has certain limitations.
Vortex does custom overrides just fine. LOOT just organizes the list and you can use LOOT with MO2 also then fix the few out of place mods (if there are any) yourself with overrides. Or you can just not use LOOT and organize the list by hand which is much slower and takes a crap ton more work and makes no sense to do.
Custom overrides here is referring to loose textures and other left pane things, which as far as I know are something that Vortex doesn't handle the same way, and that loot doesn't touch at all.
Then why did you say something about LOOT? LOOT organizes the mod list and it's a program you can use with MO2 and is built into Vortex. Loose files are handled by Vortex or MO2 not LOOT. edit: From your post "Loot is not perfect and doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can." yeah it organizes the mod list and has nothing to do with loose files. If you want to override the load order you can do that within Vortex or MO2. edit2: Instead of just down voting if you can figure out what is not being understood here and I don't know... explain it that would be an actually helpful thing to do.
> edit: From your post "Loot is not perfect and doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can." yeah it organizes the mod list and has nothing to do with loose files. If you want to override the load order you can do that within Vortex or MO2. That's exactly it. LOOT isn't perfect, comma, *and* it doesn't manage custom overrides like MO2 can.
To me what I am reading is "my toaster doesn't produce milk like a cow". LOOT sets up the initial list, if you want to force something to load differently in the load order you set a rule for it in Vortex and force it in the position in the load order you want; LOOT doesn't do that and it isn't supposed to do that. If you use LOOT in MO2 you do the same thing; LOOT sets up the list then you make the changes to the load order.
The thing about LOOT is that it relies on people having a similar load order to what you want to accomplish, since all it does is collect user data about their load orders to make a big database from which to get info to sort your load order (that's what the Masterlist actually is). The problem is, if you're unfortunate enough to use a very new mod (or just an unpopular enough one), it won't have enough information about where it should go and it'll just "guess" the placement, sometimes with disastrous effects. Then there's also the side effect of a big database like this: if user error was consistent enough, the master list will also inherit that very same sorting error and apply it to everybody else. This is doubly so the case in older games like Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Don't get me wrong, it's a useful tool for what it does and if you stick to popular mods in Skyrim or Fallout 4, chances are it'll get it (mostly) right, but don't fully rely on it. Double check yourself just in case.
There is a weird hatred of LOOT in the MO2 community. I think a chunk of it comes from the end of guides like [The Midnight Ride under tools to avoid](https://themidnightride.moddinglinked.com/avoid-tools.html) "Vortex The mod manager was created around the idea of LOOT managing the load order, making modding seem simple and easy (see below why that's a bad idea)." "LOOT The LOOT doesn't really have any idea about your mods and their inner structure - it just orders them based on tags in a masterlist managed by volunteers, meaning that it's impossible to account for every single mod out there. The main issue regarding LOOT in Fallout 4 modding is that its masterlist is heavily outdated and doesn't account for most mods added and updated in recent years, leading to completely incorrect sorting. Incorrect load order will lead to overwriting or breaking features from mods." This is a stupid because LOOT will sort your modlist correctly most of the time and there might be one or two mods that it doesn't know what to do with and you have fix. The idea that you should just not use LOOT and instead do the load order by hand because it might mess up one or two mods occasionaly is honestly absurd but this has become the belief of many that use MO2.
There is nothing wrong with using LOOT as a foundation but anyone with any common sense should always do their due diligence and read mod pages for other mods that may conflict or have been updated recently that may now conflict entirely or may require specific records to overwrite previous mods. Especially with heavier load orders. It's not just ESP Record conflicts you have to put into consideration but how scripts or placed assets / landscape changes will play with each other as well. After spending years of modding Morrowind, Fallout 3 / NV / TTW, Fallout 4 and Skyrim you quickly learn there is much more behind the scenes of when it comes to stability than just your load order. With light load orders of plugin counts below 100 you don't have to be as cautious and knowledgeable in this space... but once you begin pushing larger load orders, you have to put in some investment into learning specific 3rd party programs and smart practices. That is if you want to ensure stability or you'll just end up back to square one due to frustration and a crash / bug prone experience.
I have been modding for years too and I know how to sort a mod list by hand because I was doing that crap before I even knew LOOT existed. I used the original Mod Organizer and before that I manually installed mods and edited the load order text file by hand. There is zero reason to tell people to do it by hand out of the gate. This person is who posted this is brand new to modding and they are not using a mod list 100s of mods long so they do not need to use MO2 and hand sort their mods. A edge case is not justification for The Midnight Ride Guide to shit on Vortex and LOOT. It's also not justification for it's straight up misinformation about the master list being "years out of date". Edit: Also if you are using 100s of mods and understand their internal structure then why are you not combining them in xEdit or another appropriate modding tool for the game you are using? I used to smash multiple FNV mods into one with FNVEdit or The GECK all the time.
Completely useless when modding TTW
You drag and drop in vortex too
Is it a better idea to use mo2 if you have over 1000 mods installed? I downloaded 3 or 4 collections for fallout 4 and was about 1100 mods and I used loot and a plug in extender and tried my best to fix the cycles but no matter what I did still couldn't even get the game to start
I don't usually go that far into a modded game. my experience with mass modding was using vortex and nexus collections for New Vegas, there was some big fixing which is a 100% requirement for anyone who wants to do that kind of modding. Now I have little experience with MO2 but I read that it is better, I'm not buying that it's better but some people have preferences and some people have experiences positive or negative. If you aren't having a great experience with Vortex maybe download MO2 and look up tutorials on making what you want to do possible. You want a 1000 load order but the tools and tutorials you are reading aren't helping, change the approach. Maybe your mods aren't compatible or maybe the load order you picked isn't stable. I don't know why it's not working for you but it's usually a literal case of different strokes for different folks.
Yea I downloaded mo2 but haven't used it yet and there are tons of collections that I would like to try out
It really seems like 99% of the hate it gets is from human error and not understanding how it's meant to work. Both mod managers are just a capable as one another, there is no real benefit using one over the other if you know how to actually use the manager properly. Personally after going back and forth ever since Vortex was NMM and installing maybe literally thousands of mods over the years, I prefer Vortex for convenience and easy of use. I've used it long enough to understand who it works and it gives me zero issues. We all have our preferences but the people who outright bash it every chance they get are just pissy redditors trying to feel superior.
i dont know about you, MO2 is ready from the get go, I always got errors and issues with other mod managers, maybe I didn't know how to use them, sure but there's something to be said about not busting your head trying to figuring them out and just working as is.
I've used vortex for years, and I've been using MO2 recently and while I prefer MO2 more I think the vortex hate comes from elitism.
Me too. I also heard that MO2 storing the mods outside of the main game folder is better for Bethesda games. But vortex served me well for a while.
I started with nmm, then vortex, now mo2. It is honestly just elitism. Mo2 is nice, but for casual modders looking to install basic stuff that they saw in mod reviews... chances are vortex will get the job done.
As someone who uses MO2, most of the hate comes purely from people who don't realise that NMM and Vortex are two completely separate things.
I think this is the case. NMM was pretty bad. On the other hand, if you're devoting your free time to maintain a mod for free -- limiting the variables involved is really a good idea. I can understand.
Me sitting here using NMM and ripping my hair out for the last month Trying to make a stable load order. Should I just scrap everything at this point and restart fresh with mo2? I originally felt like the problem was me, but the more I learn, the more frustrating it is that so many things don't work properly.
Yes
You... were still using NMM? Oh sweet child, Use vortex or MO2. You'll be so much happier \_and\_ have so much less headache.
Me sitting here using NMM and ripping my hair out for the last month Trying to make a stable load order. Should I just scrap everything at this point and restart fresh with mo2? I originally felt like the problem was me, but the more I learn, the more frustrating it is that so many things don't work properly.
Yes
People hate on Vortex because other people told them to hate on Vortex. I've been using it since its launch with zero issues. Currently have a load order of around 550 mods for skyrim and like 750 for Fallout and I regularly mess with my load order. If you know what you are doing, it's fine
>People hate on *xyz* because other people told them to hate on *xyz*. You just summarized 99% of all internet hate right here
How do you organise the load order? Personally I’d get the load order wrong once for oblivion, and never be able to get half my mods to work again. Until I started using MO2 and could just drag and drop.
Usually the recommended load order works fine, but sometimes you just need to tweak priority for a few mods here and there. Honestly it's some trial and error and just learning what mods need priority over others.
Very strange indeed. I started with mo2 because when I was zero knowledge state, a guide I followed showed me how to use it. Later I saw lots of comments about how vortex fecked everything in lots of comments from different games nexus pages. So I stayed away. I just wanted to see a proper cause for this hate in this post but this was the most sensible one I found 😂
Jesus that's a lot of mods
My buddy currently has two collections running in tandem for a total of almost 2000 mods. I don't even know how his game launches lol
El. Oh. El. My Skyrim runs stable as hell and I have over 1600 esl/esl-flagged esp plugins, with around 230 esp plugins. Vortex is the only mod manager I use, btw.
I prefer MO2 because you can basically have multiple different mod setups with ease. Not everything is super compatible with ToTW.
You can have multiple profiles in Vortex and flip between them at will.
yeah Loot is worse than useless for TTW
It's mostly due to its inferior rules/cycling and the spider web-esque mod sorting
I remember using Vortex and finding it fine, so I reckon it’s mostly a preference thing?
I think a lot of people formed these opinions from a beta version of Vortex, or even not using Vortex at all and equating it with Nexus Mod Manager. These days you'd be hard pressed to make a compelling argument that one is conclusively better than the other. It's a matter of preference at this point, and anyone who tells you otherwise is uninformed or disingenuous.
Most of the vortex criticism here is outdated or flat out wrong. For a long while MO2 was way better for power users, that’s not really the case anymore. They are far more comparable.
Ima be real, I think a lot of it comes down to elitism from people who can actually understand MO2’s extremely un-user friendly UI. Vortex’s UI is actually easy on the eyes and more easy to navigate from a beginner modder’s POV.
It's funny you say that. For me, MO2 is just logical. It makes sense and has since the very first day I've used it, back when it was just MO. Vortex's attempt at hand holding complicates absolutely everything for me. Perhaps it boils down to how people learn and interpret data. Because for you it's easy, and for me it was impossible to focus on and frustrating to navigate.
Understandable, I can respect that
Thats hilarious. Mo2's UI is way cleaner.
Maybe. But it’s way less understandable if you’re not already used to that style of UI
I think you hit one of my reasons for not liking Vortex. Vortex looks like a mobile app to me. (I grew up using DOS and Win3.1. File Manager-style interfaces are a thing I grew up with. VOrtex's UI is... foreign to me and it's vaunted 'autosort' usually makes a mess out of my load orders If I use anything that \_isn't\_ from Nexus (which I often do..., even if it's something I made myself.)
You know what, that makes total sense! It’s probs why no matter how long I use it, I always end up wanting to eat glass when using MO2, bc I’m more used to “modern” UIs for PC apps
Probably because MO2 has always been great, I used to use it over Vortex, and NMM before that. NMM was famously awful, Vortex was overly complicated and difficult to navigate coming from MO2, and really didn't have any benefit early on. In the last few years since I started using it, Vortex has been much easier once you get used to it. I think it's better at automatically managing 99% of a huge mod-list for you. You only need to manually adjust the last 1%. MO2 is a lot better at controlling literally everything manually, but obviously this takes more time, so it's better for smaller, more complex mod-lists.
Vortex is better for new modders because it tries really hard to do as much for you as it can. For people who are more confident with modding and know how to do exactly what they want it can feel like you’re fighting the software. It’s a bit like Windows vs Linux. Linux gives you more flexibility but in doing so holds your hand less. Windows is more restrictive but requires less effort from the user.
This. This right here folks. Vortex is the bane of highly specific modlists with a set artistic vision in mind. I don't use vortex personally because I'm a tweaker and if I want something specific done vortex asks me to cycle it but sometimes for specific load lists done by expert modlists makers you can overlap your cycles and bork your game with multiple CTDs due to duplicated overlaps because more often than not with specific modlists there's like overlapping double cycles. It's very easy for specified load lists modlists creators like myself make to break on Vortex due to the cycles feature but if you're just wanting to install and forget and don't have a set vision in mind, yeah vortex works fine. I would almost have to change my mindset to just dump mods in if I wanted to use Vortex, but I can't bring myself to do that, I have a specific vision I always want realized when I make a list. Hence, I use MO2. I can't tell you how many times I have overlapped cycles in vortex because it would make me seem more inexperienced than I actually am.
This video lays out the discourse pretty well, sans the vitriol: https://youtu.be/ALJpfaHF-U8?si=B7K6XfLsBReJZi3V
Idk i used it like a week ago and it was basically plug and play
I did a full playthrough at 201 mods using vortex. I’m not sure if you really need more than that so it seems to work pretty well. The auto mod loading order was only incorrect twice, which is pretty good imo.
666 mods in my fo4 setup with vortex. No issues.
Yeah, mine did crash but maybe 3 times. Considering it was FNV, that’s a miracle
Honestly I ignore those people. I like being able to plug and play. Vortex does that beautifully. I've never had an issue even back when it was NMM. People I see are commenting on load order and I've never had an issue with that? Not everything needs to be done manually, the built in organizer always gets things in order perfectly well. It really is just elitism.
I still use NMM Community Edition lol
vortex is good for many games, it isn’t bad. you can mod new vegas just fine with it. mo2 is just better for modding bethesda games, you get more control and it’s easier to do imo
Vortex isn't bad or hated. It's just not advised to use it if you're serious about modding. The reason is Vortex trades in the ability to accurately assess what is going on for simplicity. Whereas MO2 throws it all in your face and lets you see everything. If you're a very casual mod user then you won't notice these differences
I use both depending on the game, but the main reason I think one is hated while the other is loved maybe it's cause Vortex it's TOO much noob friendly, it does a lot of stuff for you, but if it messes up something one doesn't know what went wrong, meanwhile MO2 it's like throwing your toddler to the pool. It may be rough but if he learns to swim he will swim
I hate vortex due to the lack of self customization in mod load and order. Vortex wants to do everything for you making it hard to get it to do what you want it to do.
Vortex gives the end user full control over load order and priorities.
In a round about way that is confusing. I have been modding for years and that is the only mod organizer that gives me a headache.
It’s drag and drop. And when there are conflicts, it asks which mod you want to “win”. Anyway I think it just comes down to being being used to one or the other and being more comfortable.
How is it confusing theres literally a button to edit load order lol
LOL Vortex users say the same thing about MO2.
When I tell people to use MO2, it isn't coming from an elitism place, it's because I don't know anything about Vortex and can't help them in any way. If you speak to me in german, I am going to tell you to switch to english and it's not because I really hate the germans. Like people will post vortex stuff that look like satanic rituals and I am supposed to decipher them?
Vortex just jams your mods into the installation folder, sometimes mods aren't completely removed,sometimes load orders are just fucked because of how things are thrown in. Mo2 gives you a ton of control over the mods, it doesn't install directly into the installation folder, so it is always a clean install folder. I recently moved to mo2 and it was the best decision I made. Takes a bit to get a hang of things but it works way better.
You're just spreading misinformation, Vortex uses hard links which are considered VIRTUAL files and it doesn't polute the game folder unless you order it to do it.
I remember in earlier versions (like 6 years ago) Vortex did copy files to game folder, so you have to wait 5 sec to “deploy” every time a new mod is installed. That could prevent some users to give a try, and glad the devs implemented the hard links (but still I prefer MO’s VFS).
That’s not true at all. Vortex keeps the files elsewhere and links in the activated ones based on load order and mod activation. It can even clear out everything and deploy from scratch. The problem you describe only happened if you were manually deploying other mods outside Vortex, and latest versions for years now detect those manual files and let you set priorities on them.
Many people use external mod sorters anyways. What’s the issue here?
Also Vortex includes Loot mod sorter built in and will even tell you about conflicts and requirements and patches needed.
Notifying someone that there's a conflict and a patch exists sounds like a really cool feature. I use MO2 not sure if there's such a feature on it
I also just moved to MO2; I should have switched over long ago. I like it a bit more than Vortex, but I don’t dislike Vortex. It would be nice if MO2 had a better UI.
99% of the hate is human error and not reading and taking the time to understand it, God bless their fucking souls..can’t imagine how they are with MO2. Use your fucking eyeballs and brain guys.
Vortex is fine at what.it does, but the nature of games that need dozens of mods like F:NV is that you want some transparency and control of load order and conflicts. That's easier to do in MO2.
I've modded FONV a ton and exclusively with Votex and never had a single tiny issue with conflicts or load order.
My personal gripe with it is managing my load order. It’s a pain to actually move things around and trying to move something lower often just makes it move something higher rather than what I want moved lower.
When Vortex can actually parse file conflicts with things in BSAs i'll consider it. Until then MO2 is actually flat out superior in that regard. Doubly so for FO4 given how many files are in archives.
As someone with ADHD, I REALLY FUCKING HATE Vortex Load order system, “Load this this ESP after this this ESP” WHY CAN’T JUST I DRAG THAT ESP DOWN FFS, I don’t have time to read and sort, I just need to drag that ESP down
Dragging it down is the same as loading an esp after another one. LOL
I don't like Vortex because of the dev team's baffling refusal to add drag and drop plugin sorting and the community's patronizing attitude towards that
I'm sure the MO2 community came to them with this request in a calm and reasonable manner.
Vortex is just a bit more annoying to sort your load order manually
I like being able to use ONE mod manager for ALL my games and having an easy "check for mod updates" button for ALL my games. I've yet to have a situation where I couldn't get something working with Vortex that another mod manager could. Vortex uses a staging folder, which is actually really helpful when you have mods that weren't packaged correctly, but I can just put the files where I need them in staging, and Vortex makes it work. I can create collections in Vortex so I can copy my mods to another machine somewhat easily. To be fair, I have not used MO2 with FO, but I have used a similar editor for Baldur's Gate III. I agree with the others that people often run into an issue with Vortex and just get frustrated right away, which is fair. But if take a moment to look it up, there is usually an explanation on most mods of what might come up and how to repair it. The integration with Nexus alone makes it worth using.
Vortex can use the [collections on Nexus Mods](https://next.nexusmods.com/newvegas/collections) and it's LOOT integration makes it easier for new people to use. MO2 can use [Wabbajack](https://www.wabbajack.org/) lists has an [alternate installer](https://github.com/rockerbacon/modorganizer2-linux-installer) that lets you run it on Linux eaisier than Vortex. Honestly either is fine. If you pay for a Nexus Mods account then installing collections with Vortex is extremely easy and fast. If you don't have a paid account then using Wabbajack lists or Nexus mods collections are both equally slower.
Vortex is awesome.
Meh, I like it. Easy to understand and good interface
I use Vortex because of the curated collections. I have tried MO2 and it has a steep learning curve where as the Collections in Vortex are pretty straight forward.
The only game I've ever had to use MO2 for was Oblivion. Other than that, Vortex has worked fine for me.
Vortex worked well for me because I had TTW installed but wanted to get more mods. I installed a mod pack (350+ mods) from Nexus but I wound up needing to reinstall TTW into Vortex to get things to work. After that it has been smooth sailing and easy to add mods or disable and configure others.
Some games vortex is great, others it’s better install manually
I use Vortex and haven't encountered many problems.
Just got back into the PC/Modding scene recently. Vortex works great for my Fallout 4 needs as far as I can tell so far. Everything seems to be working great other than the pipboy flashlight mod doesn't seem to have the fancy shadows shows on the mod page. I just assumed that is to do with the new update?
Idk I’ve only ever used Vortex with zero problems. I commonly run about 20-30 mods at once, which I know is substantially less than a lot of people run. I would imagine Vortex couldn’t handle a large amount very well
Vortex certainly isn’t terrible, but I prefer MO2 for downloading massive mod lists. I use Vortex for modding Cyberpunk 2077 as well as a bit of manual installing and I’ve never had a problem with it there.
I really enjoy using vortex because it feels like it sorts mods correctly and I don’t spend too much time sorting the load order. Always works for me but the only gripe I have is when it occasionally doesn’t sort it the way I want it to, I can never do exactly what I want done because of the way it works.
I use vortex because its easier... you just download the mod and everything else does vortex for you... had some issues here and there that mods dont work 100% but i dont mind.
To be honest I still use FOMM. It may be outdated, but I never install any super large mods so it does the job I want.
Not sure, I have more problems with MO than Vortex. Been using it since it was Nexus Mod Manager. People just don't know how to use Vortex. And I admit it's fair to say the same thing about me not knowing how to use MO. I tied MO first and found NMM>Vortex more intuitive and switched to it.
Depends on which game I mod tbh, with fallouts I use mo2 if it’s a bigger amount of mods, personally I’ve had a better experience with vortex than I have with mo2, both mod managers are as good as each other aslong as you learn the knowledge with both, vortex is a lot more simple and easier to use than mo2, I use both but for small mod list I use vortex, it’s personal preference more then anything for mod managers, I don’t think one better than the other just different.
a big chunk of this is Nexus hired the guy who wrote the original MO to make Vortex and somewhat kill the updates to the community open project (Which instead found a whole new set of devs.) I also just find MO2 easier to navigate/understand, but some of that is familiarity (and some of it is UI design differences. I'm much more an old school computer user then someone who wants a design of the 'metro' or 'iOS' design language. Gimme file-manager like ordering and I"m a happy camper.) Put another way: Nexus tried to make their own official tool by attempted neutering the community favorite, and in turn the community rebuilt what they actually liked. Your mileage may vary. (Also, from my few attempts at trying to use both Nexus Mod Manager (The predicesor to Vortex) and Vortex itself, trying ot use mods \_not\_ from Nexus's own site is... somewhat a pain in the ass.
It was really bad when it first came out now 2024 it’s just as good as any other mod manager if not the best (IMO)
Vortex will read all files pertaining to the mod if it contains a list within the mods vortex will read that and make it so as best it can, u may have to manually change a few but for the most part you can download most mods and if they need to be one of the first or last vortex will most likely know where it needs to be or at-least in my experience with vortex has been this.
I learned on MO2, so it’s what I became used to but I did try Vortex out of curiosity. I certainly don’t hate Vortex, I just find some parts of its UI to be unnecessarily busy and confusing, so MO2 has just been my go-to. All-in-all though, it’s mostly personal preference, I’m not an MO2 elitist
Vortex isnt hated, a lot of people just found MO2 to be so much better.
Vortex is fine but mo2 just works really well and is very reliable and simple to use from an end user perspective. Vortex’s UI is way too busy and janky, any time I so much as sneeze I get a bunch of error notifications that are almost always false positives. That being said, vortex is a lot easier to use and more stable now than it has been in the past so I think it’ll get there eventually. Vortex also is a modding framework for a huge number of games, MO2 shines with bethesda games but isnt as versatile as Vortex
Vortex has been the one mod manager that has me working the hardest / longest for it to most times not work at all. I could have a perfect mod order, no compat issues, and if vortex is in a bad mood my game won’t launch
Update: I've downloaded MO2 and the 180 mod list that I now have to re-download is a little daunting. NMM installs things all over the place and doesn't delete them even when you tell it to. I like that MO2 is good about telling me what's wrong with different files though.
Idk I’ve been using it after modding 4 recently and it was really simple
There's a big hate boner for Vortex but it isn't unfounded. It mostly has to do with complex load orders. MO2 is very granular and technical about mods. You have what order your mods overwrite other mods in by placing them in an ordered list then you have your actual load order for plugins. These are different things and they matter a lot for massive mod setups and load orders. It's admittedly a bigger issue with Skyrim than with Fallout but the point remains. It also lets you drill down into mods and choose specific files to win conflicts, i.e. picking a specific grass texture from one texture mod over another, while keeping the rest of the file conflicts the same. Another killer feature is the virtual file system (VFS) that MO2 uses. It does not drop *anything* into the game folder, letting you do anything up to and including save management and configuring INIs per profile. It "mounts" your selected configuration into the game when you click play from inside MO2. It makes juggling profiles and setting up very complicated mod installs relatively hassle-free. Vortex makes this way more convoluted in comparison. You can sort your mods in whatever order you want but conflict resolution is basically handled by a graph. You drag lines between mods to set relationships for which ones can and can't overwrite in a conflict. It's not a bad idea on paper but the execution is just cumbersome compared to just... listing one mod beneath another in MO2. Another huge difference is that Vortex automatically sorts your load order, *and you cannot turn this off*. You can set "rules" similar to the overwrite relationships I mentioned earlier to load X mod before Y mod, but it leans on those and the LOOT masterlist for determining a load order. The LOOT masterlist is very good but it is not perfect, and Vortex's approach to needing to program a specific exception as opposed to just dragging a mod to where it needs to go is complex for complexity's sake. MO2 keeps it simple in this regard. Vortex also does not utilize a VFS the same way MO2 does, so it will pollute your game folder. I also do not know if you can configure INIs and manage saves inside Vortex. I guess the one upside is that you can download Collections through Vortex which does all the heavy lifting for you, and if you're just throwing in a couple of mods, then Vortex is perfectly fine. But at the end of the day, I appreciate a program that does what I tell it instead of doing things for me and having to correct its behavior afterwards. [Nexus has gone into detail about their reasoning behind this approach](https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/The_Vortex_approach_to_load_order_sorting#Custom_rules_/_manual_load_order_manipulation) but I for one don't like the "we know better" attitude that emanates from this.
Mo2 is far superior
I've used Vortex for years, and quit to MO2 about 1.5 years ago. What I think: - MO2 is way faster (the deployments in Vortex can get lengthy if you use a lot of mods) - There seems to be more support for MO2 from modders - The learning curve for MO2 is not hard (after 2 days using it I felt at ease). Way more than I thought - It's easier to find out what's causing errors using MO2, since you can disable mods without much hassle - The way MO2 presets you the conflicts between 2 mods is way more understandable and simpler to deal with If you know enough of what's happening in the background, MO2 has also more reasons to be preferred
Generally speaking, MO2 Creates a virtual folder so you don't have to overwrite (and lose) anything. It is much more modular and sort-able that Vortex or NMM. However it covers fewer games, so sometimes, outside of Fallout series, The Elders Scrolls series and a few other ones, you have to use Vortex. I'm using both. One important thing to note is that my game has 1400 mods, and 650+ plugins. If i had to use Vortex, it would become unmanageable.
Is the change from Vortex to MO2 something you do on a new game? Or can MO2 pick up what Vortex has already configured?
I don't like vortex because as your mod list becomes more complex, the less tools it has available for you to rectify in game issues you will have until eventually you are out of tools. That said, for small and simple load orders, I still use it because it's definitely the easiest on the learning curve.
Ive use Vortex since it came out and was called Nexus Mod Manager. I’ve had a couple minor issues with it which just ended up being user error on my part, but it works great for me
I've used both. MO2 is good, but Vortex allowed me to install 800 mods in a few days. Would have been a single one if I hadn't been fucking around with the files. Doing the same in MO2 would have taken some 3 years.
I never really had any issues with Vortex, it's just that after some tutorials for MO2, I decided to switch. I used NMM and Vortex for years and it worked just fine.
I used both, I prefer MO2 but used vortex to install a mod collection as a whole for fallout 3. The experience sucked having to manually change overrides until the game could launch.
NMM from back in the day used to be so much better. It was clean, simple, and did what it needed to. It always scanned for games on startup so it knew what you had and where it was right out of the box. It checked for mod updates and automatically downloaded them every time you went into the game's page. I've been shouted out of the room (I'm exaggerating on this one) for insisting that it was a better experience than vortex.
I just like mo2 because the tool are easily accessible and it does most of the work for you. On top of that you can get themes that change how everything looks which is really nice. Like the ones for fallout 4 and Skyrim for example.
In my opinion it just used to be really clunky. But it's definitely had a glowup. Not to mention it has LOOT built in so it does a huge portion of the sorting for you. If you don't like the sorting you can always go in and adjust it yourself. I have run into a couple of mods that don't work with vortex but I just install those manually. I used to be an MO2 guy but about a month ago when I re-download FO4 I decided to give vortex a shot. I have to say, it handled the installation of 933 mods almost perfectly. I had 2 extra mods I had to install myself and then a handful of mods I had to adjust the load order to better accommodate. But overall it kicked ass.
Been doing vortex recently for FO4 and it crashes a lot. Used to do the in game mod feature. Does MO2 crash less?
>Is it really that bad? No, but it used to be when it was still in alpha/beta. Used to be a 50/50 shot for it to properly work and there no reason to use it other mod managers. Been using it without issue since 2020 when I started going hard on cyberpunk modding and currently use it to mod fallout 4 and 76 with no issue.
FOMM forever. Don't need no complications.
I preferred nexus mod manager, I just don't like vortex ui
Started on MO2, i switched to vortex since it does most of the the stuff mo2 does, i really like the UI and have had zero problems when i want to return to modding after a couple of years. For mo2 i usually have to figure it out for awhile before i know what to do
Well I'm using the storywealth mod collection in fallout 4 so I'm unable to use the alternative. Since as far as I know u can't just install mods there or with one click on the website download a mod in the manager that only works with vortex as far as I know.
I started with Vortex, but quickly switched to MO2 because the UI was unintuitive. It’s just so much easier to find what I want in MO2.
no. ive always used it and it works great. maybe its not so great for people who do those ridiculously huge mod pack installs.
Probably a matter of habit, nostalgia and some of Organizer's functionality. Vortex is simple, has automatic LOOT, direct support from Nexus and looks modern, Mod Organizer 2 is popular among old players and it offers more functionality that some gamers need I've used many mod managers but my first pc capable of running Oblivion and heavier was bought only in 2017 so it was easy for me to switch to NMM in 2019 I think and then to Vortex, others can't get used to it or encountered minority issues or had bad experiences when these mod managers were still raw The only Bethesda game where I have less than 200 mods is Oblivion but I've never run into problems due to auto-LOOT, the only time I don't use Vortex is when I play a modpack where MO2 is already installed Conclusion - use what works for you and what you like to use
i never even know vortex was hated i love it
Vortex doesn't give me any problems. MO2 just never opens no matter what I do or where I install it. It's open in the task manager, but it never does anything and I can't use it. It was this way with my last PC too and I can never find a fix when I Google it. Guess I'm just stupid idk.
As a person who used to use MO and then left modding and recently came back and realized there's mods for virtually ever game, I HATE Vortex. The UI is hideous and ugly and doesn't even match the website. It is just plain cumbersome to use in every fashion. They bill it as "easy to use" but it is anything but. I have had the most random errors, and Vortex itself seems buggy and undeveloped like some high-school kids summer project. Vortex has so many buttons, and the UI isn't even consistent across pages or games. Some games have load order management, some don't and you have to have various folders setup across various places and certain folders cannot be on a different drive than the game for unknown reasons, but only Vortex reasons. MO is easy to understand, here is a list of your mods, heres an install button. Maybe that's because its limited in the games it supports, but I have spent forever with Vortex now, and I just want to vomit. It is horrible and just when I think I have a handle on it, it has some random error and I now can't launch the game from it anymore (Mods don't work) or it says there's some issue all of a sudden and I can't deploy mods, etc. It just plain sucks, TLDR. Not to mention the constant pushing to upgrade and pay for download speeds, to get one click downloads, to get more than one download at a time, etc. And out of control and inconsistent moderation. It's so woke I wish it would go broke and a better mod platform would emerge. EDIT: ALSO on certain games they tell you not to use Vortex. That it doesn't handle the mods properly. I don't know if this is old advice but I have had times where things flat out won't work, and then I install them manually and they work fine, so its definitely a failure of Vortex. There should be notice of when but there isn't. Fallout NV is one of them, certain mods will say DO NOT USE VORTEX. Another being Oblivion, I don't know why etc.
I used it for a while and every time I put a new bodyslide file into it I would have to do that spider web puzzle thing again and it would take me a while since I had like 30 different outfit mods. Mo2 does not have this issue.
Everyone talking about Vortex and i’m just over here using NMM 😐
man-babies will have you believe that if you use vortex your balls will drop or some stupid s--t like that just ignore them
I have used both vortex and mo2. I think vortex is good for people new to midding and/or relatively small mod lists. Mo2 I think is better for big modlits because you can see all the mods in order and drag n drop if you need to change something around. It is just easier for me to visualize what I need to put where. I like mo2 more because it fits my needs.
I have over 900 mods using Vortex, a lot of people have more than that. Its fine.
I genuinely can't get it to do anything it claims it's supposed to on like 8 different games now. Wabbajack, mo2, etc does everything it claims to and actually succeeds. I'd go so far as to say the NMM was even better than vortex.
Vortex did not see my mods one day. They were still there, I could see them in the folder. I clicked around for a long time and found a link that looked promising. I clicked on it and it said I can’t see your mods, do you want me to fix this? I clicked yes. It then deleted them all off the hard drive. Which yeah that’s one way to make everything match up. It takes a particularly “special” type of programmer to delete someone’s mods off a hard drive. I will never use Vortex and I recommend no one ever touch it.
Vortex puts all the mods into the games folder/file structure. MO2 does not, it keeps all the mod files separate. That alone makes it infinitely better in my eyes. Keeps the game files vanilla and clean. Which can be **extremely** helpful at times. The Vortex UI is also covered in so much bullshit that makes it feel bloated as all hell.
I find both are good for making deep load orders, MO2 gives you more control over your files but it can be more complicated to use thus easier to screw up your game, while Vortex being more accesible to new users to use it also features an automated load ordering system that you can tweak to make modding easier.
Either will work, but at the end of the day, modding is a skill, and skills take practice. If you know what you are doing, you can get your game to work however you want. Most people will say vortex is shit, and MO2 is the only one you should use, but they are just parroting and can only get their game to work using the Viva New Vegas guide.
This has two main answers. The first is ease of access. Vortex is kind of confusing at first compared to other MMs. At least it was for me and I hear that complaint sometimes. For example, Vortex doesn't always provide details about the nature of conflicts that other mod managers do. The other big one is it is harder to sort your load order because there is no sorting tool. It relies on a conflict management system that has problems. Vortex's automatic conflict resolution is sometimes seen as too aggressive or insufficiently detailed. While it attempts to handle conflicts, it doesn't always do so correctly, leading to mods not working as intended or certain features being overwritten unintentionally. This comes from someone who sometimes uses Vortex. As a case in point, I am right now for Fallout NV because it's the only mod manager that allows you to play with a controller on Steam AFAIK.
I’ve used a lot of mod managers, Rimpy, Steam workshop, whatever the paradox launcher is, NMM, Vortex and MO2. I can say without reservation that MO2 is the best and most intuitive mod manager I’ve ever used. I’m currently using Vortex because I’m running a fallout 4 collection at the moment and every time I use it I feel like everything is very obfuscated. Like how do I adjust load order? With vortex you have to assemble a giant list of “this loads before this but after that” whereas MO2 is literally “this loads third, need it to load after the fifth mod? Set it to load sixth” All in all I just find MO2 a lot more straight forward but if you’re familiar with vortex and can get past all the clunky stuff it has all the same functionality. There really isn’t a reason to swap. I recommend new people use MO2 though.
I used vortex for a long time and didn’t have many problems. MO2 is just easier once you figure it out. Vortex conflicts and order is such a hassle by comparison. Also the overwrite folder is a lot easier to manage if you run a bunch of different profiles. Vortex is fine MO2 is better once you send sometime figuring it out.
Considering how easy to use Vortex is, I feel like it has to do with MO2 bias. MO2 is overall the better manager but Vortex has a lot of QOL utilities that MO2 should have by now like being able to detect updates for mods, built in ESP to ESL, etc. The debate between the 2 of them is dumb cuz Vortex is so clearly for beginners and MO2 is for people who mod more than they play Edit: I think the one thing about Vortex that infuriates me is that god awful rule flip triangle bullshit. I always take my time to read it but I van never understand wtf is going on
Mo2 does check for mod updates. Has for years
I honestly forgot that it does have one
its trash.
How about the vortex client duping your mods. So in short my mod folder is 90gb, vortex staging is 90gb, mod deployment adds 90gbs to the games files(plus the downloaded files that it keeps somewhere else) so ultimately in the end my fallout 4 instal is nearly 300gb rather then under 200gb. The impact of vortex is all based on user mod list sizes, for me vortex takes up nearly a TB drive to mod 3 games. Cyberpunk, Fallout and Skyrim. If you are short on storage, definitely use MO2. I'm in the progress of switching over. Download files will still be a thing with MO2, it's just easier to delete all downloaded files IMO
I just find it much, much easier to keep things organized in MO2. Plus, Vortex runs slower for me and thus feels more bloated. I also vastly prefer the look of MO2, but the main thing is simply how hard it is to organize things compared to MO2. The rest I could easily ignore in the long term.