Requesting help to understand the results of a LVLI merge

[jdsmith2816]

Greetings and thanks in advance for the precious time spent educating me.

 

What is the algorithm used by WB to merge leveled lists entries?  I am trying to gain an understanding such that I can glance at a set of conflicts in XEdit and understand what is going to pop out on the other end with proper tags and load order.

 

The simplest example to set up is the bash patch of Legendary content...  

 

After noting that Skyrim.esm has no tags and Dawnguard.esm has [DELEV NAMES] build patch and load it up in TESVEdit

 

If we look at 0010C6ED LItemVampireAttire we'll find an example of a list that was merged.  As I expected the first 3 entries from Skyrim.esm drop off since Dawnguard has DELEV and those entries weren't in the Dawnguard.esm column..  

 

I'm confused as to why the next entry, the first one in the Dawnguard.esm version of the list, did not carry over into the list in the patch?

 

Even more confusing is how it chose to basically keep every other record from Skyrim.esm after that?

 

Below is a screenshot of the patch since a picture is worth like.. 20000 words in this case.

 

[jdsmith2816]

Additionally in the screenshot below why did Wrye Bash choose not to carry forward the weight change?

This isn't part of a leveled list.

 

[Kesta]

Default behavior:

 

Items newly added to a LList by a mod will be in the resulting LList, no matter what. This is the main purpose of the Bashed Patch: Making sure all of the items added by mods to leveled lists are available in-game.

 - If this plugin is the only one doing change to this list, then the patch just won't bother with this LList.

 - If its changes are overwritten by an other plugin later in the load order, then the LList will be in the patch, ensuring that the item added is actually in the "final" LList.

 

 

Delev:

By default, items removed from a LList by a mod (like in the example you take), are treated as "abnormal behavior". In its quest to make all of the items from all of the plugins available, the patcher will make sure that items from Skyrim.esm are added back to the LList in order to make sure everything is available in game.

So, if you remove the Delev tag from Dawnguard.esm, you'll notice that the bashed patch will come to overwrite all of the removal, resulting in a big leveled list that include both all of the items from Skyrim.esm AND Dawnguard.esm

 

The problem is... in this case, you REALLY want those items to be removed. So you add the "Delev" tag.

 

 

Relev tag:

If a mod do "other" changes to LList entries, such as modifying the minimal level for one of the item, this change won't be carried over into the bashed patch if the Bashed Patch come in play to merge some entries into this LList.

Example:

A leveled list is defined in Master.esm with 2 items, min level of 1.

PluginA.esp add a third item.

PluginB.esp modify the leveled requirement for the 1st item to set it to 5.

 

The default behavior would be: 

The three items will be available at level 1. The Bashed Patch will indeed be created (because PluginB.esp prevent the new item from PluginA.esp to show up), however it ignore the "releveling" introduced by PluginB.esp. With The relev tag applied to PluginB.esp, this will finally behave as expected.

 

This is what happen in your first example, The item that is "not added" to the bashed patch (LItemEnchVampiresRobes) actually is in here, this is the "ITM but conflict winner" line near the end of your screenshot. If you add Relev to Dawnguard.esm, this will behave as expected.

 

 

Relev is often misinterpreted, because items with a different level than the one in the master aren't displayed on the same line in TES5Edit, leading unwary users to think the mod "remove the level 1 item, and add the level 5 item", while it just modify the min level of the same item.

 

 

Do note that despite only saying "relev", this tag is also the one that ensure that item count and other changes are carried over as well (otherwise they're ignored same as the item's min level)

 

 

 

 

As for your second issue, you need the STATS tag added to Legacy Of the Dragonborn in order for its changes to be carried over to the bashed patch. I don't know if the stats patcher is 100% working in the current versions though. Sharlikran will probably be able to tell you whenever he drop by.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Kesta

[jdsmith2816]

Thanks a ton Kesta that really helped clear things up for me!  I had read the documentation at tesfans but something just wasn't clicking.