The EE FixPack should not have optional components

[subtledoctor]

i have seen a number of discussions around here that have included, or even concluded with, a statement along the lines of "that can just be an optional component." I want to make the case that this is a mistake, and the ease of saying "eh, toss it in the optional bin" makes it a bit too easy for this mistake to be multiplied.

First, as a conceptual matter, this is blatant scope creep. The purpose of this project is, avowedly, to fix bugs and problems and inconsistencies such that the state of the resulting files better reflects developer intent. What that precisely means is subject to discussion and even debate, but it has the benefit of being very simple, and it doesn't really admit options. Either a fix falls into that category or it doesn't. I know that deciding that may make winners and losers at times, but it is still worth deciding.

The term "optional but cool" has been bandied around, but honestly, you know what is optional but cool? Every mod on this site. There are any number of mods floating around that advertise "fixes" and "restorations" and making game files more consistent and making the games hew more closely to the PnP rules. All of those are very good mods, but they are not The FixPack.

The Fixpack is designed to have  special status among mods. This was stated outright in the early discussions about this project. It was suggested that 1) this mod would always be suggested to be first in the install order; and 2) this mod would always suggested to be installed. And I guess 3) the hope is that the contents of this mod might be adopted by Beamdog and included as the default game state in a future patch.

This suggests there is a secondary purpose of this project: that it will provide a stable and predictable state of the game, on top of which all other mods should be installed. You just can't ignore the fact that this is being created in the context of a stable of many other mods that have existed for many years. That is the environment into which this is being born. Looking at the older FixPacks, it is fairly uniformly suggested to players that they be installed, and installed first. This means that other mods come to rely on the FixPack'ed game, and its presence even figures into troubleshooting problems sometimes.

Optional components undermine the pride of place this is intended to have among mods. They undermine the FixPack's ability to provide a stable foundation for other mods.

To be clear, I am not arguing that compatibility with other mods should factor into whether something is deemed worthy to include here. That's a different argument. My point is that having multiple optional components can lead to compatibility and troubleshooting difficulties - when a player says "yes, I installed the EEFixPack" a modder will not know what that means as far as the state of the game files and how to replicate problems. And, it risks this for no reason - a putative optional component will not advance that stated goal of this project, which is to fix things that are errors going against dev intent.

"Optional but cool" sounds nice... but it sounds nice as a distinct project. It would be totally worthwhile making an "Optional But Cool Fixes and Tweaks" mod and it's a great idea to collect ideas for that here. But the variable contents of such a mod  should not have to be assumed when someone says "I installed the FixPack," and the contents of such a mod should not have to be shoehorned into position #1 in the install order just because it gets tied to the hip of the real Fixpack without due consideration.

I think that's me case. Feel free to argue, nitpick, curse my family for generations, whatever. But think about it, at least.

[Greenhorn]

50 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I think that's me case. Feel free to argue, nitpick, curse my family for generations, whatever. But think about it, at least.

Wow, you truly believe in your cause. But let us hope it will not come to that ( underlined text).  That being said, nope. I don't agree that EE FixPack should not have optional components. Discuss. 

[Guest Morgoth]

I agree.

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, Greenhorn said:

I don't agree that EE FixPack should not have optional components.

Why?

[Greenhorn]

On 5/11/2022 at 10:12 PM, subtledoctor said:

Why?

Let us imagine following situation Doc: what you call fix I call tweak. When I say you, it's figurative speech, not explicitly you, so please don't take this personally. Most of the things proposed by this mod sound reasonably without objection from any sane person. On the other hand there are some things proposed which I wouldn't install  under threat from gunpoint. We could settle this through OBC which is compromise which would let neither of us to be fully satisfied but as they say life is compromise. Or you could insist to stuff down my gullet every "fix" you deem appropriate. In that case I would spit it out, stomp my foot on it and say to hell with this mod, there are already ton of tweaks out there which have decency to call itself what they truly are, tweaks. If this is how we will play I'm more than happy to allow my game to remain... "broken".  

Edited May 13, 2022 by Greenhorn

[subtledoctor]

All fair points! To clarify my position: I'm not at all saying we should default to questionable fixes or fixes without consensus being forced into the main Fixpack. Let's take it for granted that some fixes will be deemed worthy of being included in a monolithic FixPack component, while other fixes will be deemed "better left optional." Which fixes go into  which category is a whole series of discussions but that doesn't matter for now; we can just assume that some will fall into Column A and some will fall into Column B.

So in fact I'm going further than you: I'm saying that, rather than making the "better left optional" fixes separate components of the FixPack, they should be separated even further and turned into a completely distinct mod. Call it "the OBC Fixes mod." Or whatever.

I suppose this might depend on exactly which fixes end up being deemed OBC. So maybe this is premature. But as I say, I've been seeing it mentioned more and more in various threads so I wanted to get this out there before an OBC component becomes a knee-jerk assumption.

[Cahir]

So, what exactly is the difference for having "Optional but cool" component and "Optional but cool" mod? The way I see it, in second case you need to install two mods instead of one.

No one will suggest optional component as something mandatory to install, I wouldn't worry about it much. I get the argument that this might be more difficult to debug, though. That's a good point actually. 

I'd say if something is a fix, even if controversial or established as something that may not have been developer intention, then it should find its place in EE Fixpack and optional component would be a perfect fit. 

[Awachi]

I agree, but only if there are no substantially controversial inclusions. 

Probably related, but really the only ones seriously arguing either side of any particular issue are also the ones more than capable of tinkering with the install themselves to get their preferred version. Chefs arguing about when to add salt while cooking scrambled eggs while the customers just want a good breakfast. 

[Greenhorn]

15 minutes ago, Awachi said:

I agree, but only if there are no substantially controversial inclusions. 

Probably related, but really the only ones seriously arguing either side of any particular issue are also the ones more than capable of tinkering with the install themselves to get their preferred version. Chefs arguing about when to add salt while cooking scrambled eggs while the customers just want a good breakfast. 

Oh, you, YOU! Good one.  Discussion is the good thing. 

[DavidW]

Quick minimal comments (I’m traveling):

1) the original FP managed (indeed, manages) perfectly well with an ‘optional but cool’ component.

2) the condition for getting something into 2.7 is different from the condition for getting it into the FP. I am sympathetic to the idea that discerning dev intent is delicate enough for item duplication that deduplication shouldn’t be part of a FP core component, but I’m also quite happy to recommend it for 2.7. BD’s scope is wider than the FP’s.

[suy]

Here is a simple example of why I think that an optional component is better than a separate mod for users:

The item deduplication is likely to cause some issue with (at least) the Item Randomizer. At the very least, I think it will cause the degradation that the items which are swapped won't be randomized. Some users might not like that, and would prefer the randomization over the fix (at least meanwhile the Randomizer adapts some strategy to detect the EEFP and patch its static table, which can be a moving target anyway, if changes are applied to the EEFP in other releases).

1. If the deduplication is a fixed component, users which don't know how to modify weidu code will have to ask for help, and patched versions of the TP2 will fly on private messages or forum posts. More tech savvy users will have to patch it themselves on each release. Even more tech savvy will have a private clone of the repo with a commit that will rebase after each release.
2. If the deduplication is an optional component, users can say "no" at install time.
3. If the deduplication is a separate mod, it will be confusing to some (less visibility), some extra burden in downloading yet another mod, and... which will be even the name of such mod? EEFP_but_less_compatible? That's gonna scare a bit some users as well.

I think for users option 2 is clearly better.

Now, I'm not denying that option 2 has also some burden on you, if you need to ask about the EEFP being installed, you'll need to ask which components. There are other developer concerns also with option 2, in that is harder to maintain the mod, or compatibility with such mod for other modders. Other options will have also their own problems for mod developers.

[The_Baffled_King]

19 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

The term "optional but cool" has been bandied around, but honestly, you know what is optional but cool? Every mod on this site.

[Snip]

"Optional but cool" sounds nice... but it sounds nice as a distinct project.

I agree. However, if the question was whether an "optional because of controversy" component should be included, my position might well be different.

I see that the OP is about the pitfalls of optional changes as a whole. I also see that the OP explicitly says that it's "worth deciding" what is or isn't a fix. However, the OP seems to implicitly favour the idea that changes in "the optional bin" are there because they aren't really fixes - and that isn't the only reason "optional fixes" have been suggested.

16 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I suppose this might depend on exactly which fixes end up being deemed OBC. So maybe this is premature.

I don't think you've raised the issue prematurely - questions of process are usually best decided towards the beginning of a project. Also, if your concerns lead to the re-opening of debates that might have been settled by way of compromise (as Greenhorn says), it's probably best not to wait until the dust on those debates is long-settled.

[subtledoctor]

6 hours ago, suy said:

Now, I'm not denying that option 2 has also some burden on you, if you need to ask about the EEFP being installed, you'll need to ask which components. There are other developer concerns also with option 2, in that is harder to maintain the mod, or compatibility with such mod for other modders. Other options will have also their own problems for mod developers.

To be honest, I have not seen any suggested fixes that would make more work for me, and I don't really expect to. (And even if that happens, the amount of extra work is likely to be minimal.) I'm not really worried about me, or other people who are modding right now. I'll keep harping on the same example of the Boots of Speed to illustrate my concern:

The FixPack is going to have a special status among mods. The installation advice is gong to have two points: 1) always install the FixPack; and 2) always install the FixPack first.

For anything deemed a core fix - anything that "makes the cut" to be in the core component - this is entirely reasonable, and it is reasonable to refuse to consider inter-mod compatibility. This is the fixed stable foundation upon which other mods should build. Fine.* But for anything that doesn't make the cut - to use the phrase I'm seeing, anything considered "optional but cool" - why should those installation rules apply? There was a suggestion to change the RES for five out of six instances of the Boots of Speed in BG2EE. If this is done late in the install order, among Tweaks Anthology, aTweaks, and the like, that would be fine. And those mods are chock full of things that could be considered "optional fixes." But this tweak is different; considered to be a little less optional, I guess - though still optional! So it goes in Component 2 of The FixPack. And The FixPack must be installed first, right?

So you can put whatever you want in the Readme, you can suggest splitting up the mod and installing different parts at different times, etc. But for lots of players, all they will remember or even read is "install The FixPack first!" And so they will install the core fixes, and then be presented with a very simple question, entirely free of context:

Install component [Optional But Cool Fixes]?
[I]nstall, or [N]ot Install or [Q]uit?

That's "better" because it is simpler, but players are likely to be woefully underinformed when confronted with that question. As often as not, they are going to press "I" because why wouldn't you want fixes that are avowedly cool? And then they will install a bunch of other mods, and then they will play the game for like 40 hours, and only then they will go onto the forum for the Item Upgrade mod and post something like "This mod isn't working! It won't let me combine the Boots of the North with the Boots of Speed!"

And that's bad, but still not that bad. Troubleshooting would be annoying because the bug report is not going to contain relevant information (the player will have installed The FixPack with makes the game "fixed" and therefore only assume a bug in the mod installed later), but still, if it's my mod I can handle that quite easily. But if it is Item Upgrade, there might not be anyone to handle it. Maybe some kind soul volunteers to maintain Item Upgrade but nobody does for Item Revisions. Or Item Randomizer, or Bigg's Tweaks, or etc. etc. etc.

So, * the BG2FixPack is a poor comparison because it was made when this scene was what, four years old? Five? In 2005 I was young and handsome and the world was full of promise. Now I'm tired and grumpy and there are two decades of mods out there, in various states of (dis)repair. To refuse to consider those mods and refuse to facilitate install order flexibility for changes that by definition are not deemed core fixes but merely "cool" seems silly. Especially if something as simple as install order flexibility might solve the compatibility issue. (Item deduplication wouldn't necessarily cause problems with Item Randomizer if it happens later!)

6 hours ago, suy said:

it will be confusing to some (less visibility), some extra burden in downloading yet another mod, and...

I mean, can just bundle two mod executables in the same download package. Why not? As for what to call it, it could be "FixPack_Optional_Components.tp2" or "FixPack_Install_Late.tp2" or "FixPack_OBC.tp2." Whatever.

tl;dr: once something is deemed to be merely optional but cool, the imperative to ignore inter-mod concerns has less force, and the conversation about 1) their implementation, and 2) their install instructions ("always, and first") should change.

Understand, I don't really expect to convince people to follow the thread title. I'm not saying I'm right and Suy is wrong, or something like that. I just want to encourage a bit more creativity and consideration while this is still in the process of being formed.

Edited May 12, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Guest Australia is Hell]

What’s the difference between an optional fix and a tweak?

[Guest Morgoth]

44 minutes ago, Guest Australia is Hell said:

What’s the difference between an optional fix and a tweak?

Tweak: take a spell and change his duration from 6 rounds to 30 rounds to make it less boring to have to recast it.

Optional fix (happened for Old Baldur's gate 2): in the Sarevok Wrath Scene, according to how you answered to Sarevok, you would gain the bonus from the tear and a bonus from HOW you answered to Sarevok. So basically two bonus from one single challenge even if you "supposedly" should have only the reward of the tear. Optional fix: remove the bonus from sarevok dialogue.
I am against this fix btw.