How to create merged patch for conflicting mods only?

[Poncington]

Hopefully I didn't miss anything too obvious but I'm having a small issue.  Before I got anniversary edition I would do a merged patch after finishing my load order without issue but now that AE added a ton of mods I get an error that xedit can only add 253 out of 307 masters.  I tried filtering for conflicts first to get the number of mods down under 253 but even though there are under 200 remaining in the left pane after filtering for conflicts it still tries to add all 307 when I create merged patch.  I wish I could make it go back and uncheck the mods that aren't conflicting retroactively.  What can I do aside from filtering for conflicts and making a long list of mods so I know what to check when I restart sse edit?  I'm guessing there's a far better way to go about this but my xedit skills are extremely basic.

[Mousetick]

3 hours ago, Poncington said:

What can I do aside from filtering for conflicts and making a long list of mods so I know what to check when I restart sse edit?

Nothing. That's the only way around.

 

You should use Wrye Bash to create a merged patch, or create the merged patch(es) manually in xEdit.

No one should use xEdit's 'Create Merged Patch' anymore. Except perhaps with Oblivion or Oldrim or Fallout 3/NV, as these games themselves have a hard 255 plugins limit, but even then Wrye Bash is the better automated tool. In fact searching online for help on xEdit's Merged Patch yields no useful results, particularly about your issue, as no one uses it.

The xEdit documentation recommends against it:

Quote

NOTE: This function is obsolete and not supported.

This function was originally introduced when there was no Wrye Flash for Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. This function is no longer useful as a replacement for Wrye Flash. Attempts to remove it in the past resulted in complaints so it is left in the program. We would appreciate it if you would not ask any questions about the function.

Attempting to create a Merged Patch in xEdit results in the following warning:

[Poncington]

I had no idea.  When you google you get different results from various times in history and it's a bit confusing.  I thought the latest way was still to delete anything to do with leveled lists and make the merged patch in xedit then tweak it manually until it's as close as possible then make a bashed patch selecting only leveled lists so each program can do what it's best at.  I'll start doing it the new way thank you.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Poncington

[Poncington]

Just to be clear, all I need to do is make a bashed patch with my whole load order minus the usuals like dyndolod and then tweak it in xedit after it's done until it looks right?  That would actually be ideal since wrye bash didn't complain about too many mods.

EDIT: It's a bit different than I'm used to.  It seems to decide on it's own which mod should win over another despite load order.  For example it put miraaks mask enchantment from zims immersive artifacts in the patch over the one from sneak tools despite sneak tools being later in the load order.  I also noticed that it errs on the side of caution and goes with the strongest stat for items and creatures bypassing other mods with inferior stats for the npc or item.  I'm not totally against it but it makes me wonder what else is going on under the hood that I can't see.  I guess I'll try it and see if anything strange happens in the playthrough.

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Poncington

[z929669]

I haven't used WB in years now, but creating a 'merged' patch wasn't possible historically. A Bashed Patch only used to merge leveled lists and not other records. Perhaps this has changed?

There's several tools available for merging plugins, but it may be that only zMerge (comes with zEdit) is the most contemporary. Mator Smash may or may not be deprecated.

[Mousetick]

53 minutes ago, Poncington said:

Just to be clear, all I need to do is make a bashed patch with my whole load order minus the usuals like dyndolod and then tweak it in xedit after it's done until it looks right?

Yes. You can find online tutorials on how to create a Bashed Patch with Wrye Bash. It can merge many types of records in addition to leveled lists. You select the types of records you want to merge when creating the Bashed Patch. The resulting patch is equivalent to what you were used to get with xEdit Merged Patch, which you should check afterwards in xEdit and tweak as needed.

I don't think it matters whether you include DynDOLOD plugins or not, as the kind of records they contain are not considered for merging, AFAIK.

I don't use WB myself so I can't help you further with details.

[Poncington]

I see thanks.  So what is considered the best practice in 2023 by those that keep up with this?  I had no idea things had changed so much.

[Mousetick]

1 hour ago, Poncington said:

It seems to decide on it's own which mod should win over another despite load order.  For example it put miraaks mask enchantment from zims immersive artifacts in the patch over the one from sneak tools despite sneak tools being later in the load order.

Yes, it has its own logic for deciding how to resolve conflicts. Some of the logic is driven by Bash Tags attached to plugins.

If you only want to the last change in the load order to win, then you don't really need a patch? That's silly. Please ignore, I misunderstood.

If you want complete control over how conflicts are resolved, you need to create the merged patch manually in xEdit, there is no way around it. Automated tools only go so far, they don't know your personal preferences.

[Mousetick]

27 minutes ago, z929669 said:

There's several tools available for merging plugins, but it may be that only zMerge (comes with zEdit) is the most contemporary.

That would be for merging plugins (i.e. combine one or more plugins into a big one, then throw away the source plugins and only use the merged one). The OP is talking about something else: a merged patch aka CR patch.

[Poncington]

To be honest the default bash patch seems to do an ok job on it's own and I'm not sure I would know the difference during actual play if I just rolled with it.  Little stat differences here and there don't make a big difference unless powerful enemies from srceo or immersive creatures get gimped back to vanilla but that doesn't seem to be the case as far as I can tell.  I already have all of the patches for my mods that are available as far as I know so I can always check conflicts after bashing and make a few individual patches for things that matter.  Is that basically how it's done these days?

[Mousetick]

22 minutes ago, Poncington said:

Is that basically how it's done these days?

Most people only use patches if they're installed with the mod's FOMOD, and that's it. Some more experienced people seek out and use separately made patches if they are available.

By using a Bashed Patch, you're one step further. A Bashed Patch is not perfect, however. It can make mistakes or make choices that don't match your preferences. The tool doesn't know the mods' features or your intent. In your Miraak mask example, 2 mods modify the mask's enchantment: which one is "better", or which one do you want to use in the game? The tool doesn't know. So it makes a choice, based on some heuristics, which I don't know.

I'm not familiar with either of these 2 mods, but why does Sneak Tools modify the Miraak mask? Is it an important feature of the mod? ZIA's changes to Miraak's equipment is on the other hand a prominent feature of that mod. So if you're using ZIA, wouldn't you want to use its changes, rather Sneak Tools' changes?

Wrye Bash has no idea about any of these details.

24 minutes ago, Poncington said:

I already have all of the patches for my mods that are available as far as I know so I can always check conflicts after bashing and make a few individual patches for things that matter.

That sounds like a good approach. You can start with the Bashed Patch and make corrections or adjustments as needed in your own patch.

The quality of available ready-made patches can vary greatly. Some are very good, some are made by users who don't know what they are doing, some contain subjective changes or choices that may not match your preferences. It's always a good idea to check the patches in xEdit and validate them yourself.

[Poncington]

I appreciate you taking the time, this helps quite a bit.  In the pic above the bashed patch was actually using miraaks enchantment over the sneak tools enchantment despite sneak tools coming later.  Now that I've thought about it this actually makes sense.  I assume the sneak tools enchantment includes the ability to conceal your identity but I could be wrong.  If this is the case it makes sense that a high profile recognizable artifact would be a poor disguise compared to a generic hood that anybody could make from a rag.  At that point I think I would keep the zims enchantment like they did in this case so I won't be changing it.  I did notice that the sneak tools enchantment won over the zims enchantment for nightingale hoods.  I think this would make it a disguise rather than giving you cold resistance.  I agree with the choice because it's a sneaky type item that a thief would use.  Maybe the wrye bash people are pretty smart

Edited July 18, 2023 by Poncington

[Greg]

4 hours ago, z929669 said:

I haven't used WB in years now, but creating a 'merged' patch wasn't possible historically. A Bashed Patch only used to merge leveled lists and not other records. Perhaps this has changed?

We used Wrye Bash to create merged patches in the guide years ago. It's been so long ago it may have been in the Skyrim Legendary Edition guides. I haven't used Wrye Bash or create a bashed patch in years either.

4 hours ago, z929669 said:

There's several tools available for merging plugins, but it may be that only zMerge (comes with zEdit) is the most contemporary. Mator Smash may or may not be deprecated.

I think the general consensus is to avoid using Mator Smash and zEdit/zMerge. If I remember correctly, zEdit/zMerge is based on an old version of xEdit before ESL files and header version 1.0 was released (and is missing some fixes and changes in later versions of xEdit) and Mator Smash isn't quite up to Wrye Bash these days.

[z929669]

1 hour ago, Greg said:

We used Wrye Bash to create merged patches in the guide years ago. It's been so long ago it may have been in the Skyrim Legendary Edition guides. I haven't used Wrye Bash or create a bashed patch in years either.

I think the general consensus is to avoid using Mator Smash and zEdit/zMerge. If I remember correctly, zEdit/zMerge is based on an old version of xEdit before ESL files and header version 1.0 was released (and is missing some fixes and changes in later versions of xEdit) and Mator Smash isn't quite up to Wrye Bash these days.

Thanks for the context. I honestly don't remember using WB for merged patches, and too bad zEdit is deprecated somewhat. It's probably still good for zMerge, since I see it being used in Lexy's guide for that purpose still.

[Poncington]

I'm curious about the people saying you haven't used bash patches in years.  If not that, then how are you doing it?  Just filtering for conflicts and making dozens of individual patches?

Edited July 19, 2023 by Poncington