Please make mod deployment to %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfield an optional strategy. Clearly this was added intentionally by Bethesda as a more isolated option to the main installation directory, where mixing vanilla files and mod files would quickly create unwieldly messes.
Judging by the explanations (in Vortex, at modding.wiki) a OneDrive managed %UserProfile%\Documents directory can lead to issues. However, I would argue, as is evident by the detailed wiki article, using workarounds, using folder junctions as means of "removing" %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfield is potentially more problematic than just using %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfield as intended: by placing downloaded mod files there.
Surely with the same amount of time and care spent on making the workarounds and explanation of workarounds, %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfield could be offered as legitimate deployment target of Vortex downloaded mods. For users without OneDrive managed %UserProfile%\Documents this offers a substantially better experience as any of these workarounds (just to have the game installation directory as sole Vortex mod deployment target).
Having said all this, I'm aware of how %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfield is not a valid target for SFSE and its plugins. But I would rather argue SFSE and its plugins are the current special case since Starfield itself has no (sensible) plugins.txt loading alternative, with sTestFile being collectively regarded as Bad Idea. Once Bethesda enables their own version of plugins.txt, this becomes a moot point however. In that case using SFSE and PluginsTXTEnabler will become a source of problems demonstrating the problems of mixing mod-files with vanilla files, requiring some form of cleanup.
Pickysaurus
commented
1 year ago
Please make mod deployment to
%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfieldan optional strategy. Clearly this was added intentionally by Bethesda as a more isolated option to the main installation directory, where mixing vanilla files and mod files would quickly create unwieldly messes.Judging by the explanations (in Vortex, at modding.wiki) a OneDrive managed
%UserProfile%\Documentsdirectory can lead to issues. However, I would argue, as is evident by the detailed wiki article, using workarounds, using folder junctions as means of "removing"%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfieldis potentially more problematic than just using%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfieldas intended: by placing downloaded mod files there.Surely with the same amount of time and care spent on making the workarounds and explanation of workarounds,
%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfieldcould be offered as legitimate deployment target of Vortex downloaded mods. For users without OneDrive managed%UserProfile%\Documentsthis offers a substantially better experience as any of these workarounds (just to have the game installation directory as sole Vortex mod deployment target).Having said all this, I'm aware of how
%UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\Starfieldis not a valid target for SFSE and its plugins. But I would rather argue SFSE and its plugins are the current special case since Starfield itself has no (sensible) plugins.txt loading alternative, withsTestFilebeing collectively regarded as Bad Idea. Once Bethesda enables their own version of plugins.txt, this becomes a moot point however. In that case using SFSE and PluginsTXTEnabler will become a source of problems demonstrating the problems of mixing mod-files with vanilla files, requiring some form of cleanup.