Originally posted by fulcrum:

Comment on my Mod list (for family group)

The first two can be removed as they do not bind to a save and are great QoL mods for my young children. Beyond that, I am open to suggestions on both the content as well as the load order.

A possible issue is the Inventory mod inside CoSModMerge with the inventory changes from Synergies. Some items may be collected out-of-sight potentially.

Some random low level items from Lao occasionally cause immobile status to the Warbounds. Work-around is to use different items until the Warbound can walk again.

The main version of Essentials mod was updated to be more compatible with Synergies although the "Compatible" version may be out-of-date (towards Synergies) potentially.
"Lone Wolf McQuade" is the author of the main version to clarify.
The "Compatible" Essentials versions are authored by others.

Everything else should function well. The actual ordering of mods is good. Some of the interactions of specific mods mentioned above need to be tested or avoided potentially.

Exactly the sort of input that I was hoping for. Thank you, @steffire3. Fitting in that Synergies and Essentials Patch costs me the CoSModMerge for now but stability is king when playing with youngsters. The new list that I will playtest (in order):

Power Leveling - Essentials Compatible
Auto Consume
Enhanced Retex part 1 (of 2)
Enhanced Retex part 2 (of 2)
UI + ESOBC
Brothers-in-Arms: Warbounds
LAO 2.0 Chaos Edition
Synergies and Essentials Patch
Torchlight II Essentials
SynergiesMOD

The only other thing I might say about this Loadout is that UI+ESOBC also makes inventory UI changes, so be sure to alwyas have the load order as is (with ESOBC above both Syn and Essentials)

Originally posted by fulcrum:

Exactly the sort of input that I was hoping for. Thank you, @steffire3. Fitting in that Synergies and Essentials Patch costs me the CoSModMerge for now but stability is king when playing with youngsters. The new list that I will playtest (in order):

You're welcome. Glad to help your family enjoy modded TL2!
Phanjam makes an important point on UI+ESOBC.
Looking forward to your findings on the play-tests.
We'll know more for certain after that.

Well, this mod list gave us quite a lot of client freezes during load screens so I *attempted* to troubleshoot. UI+ESOBC was a big problem, as you fellas pointed out. We lost all of our gear. I tried to make up for the lost quality of life improvements by using Dracos Merged Pack w/ lvl 100 Cap but things only got worse. That mod, even when on its own, crashed the host computer in multiplayer as soon as a guest client connected. Afterwards, the client wasn't even playable until the entire \modsave folder was removed. All normal for a day in the life of playing modded games but try explaining that to four little girls all with a big back story for their characters :(

I'd love to hear of a solid mod list for multiplayer fun.

Further thoughts. The Brother In Arms: Warbounds mod also added a lot of complexity for this particular age group, I must say. I also thought the Equipment Slot Overhaul would be fun but, since they never thought to use the costume slots, my kids' characters always retained that fresh, lvl 1 look. Ah well.

Originally posted by fulcrum:

I'd love to hear of a solid mod list for multiplayer fun.

Apologies to hear on the loss of items. I will definitely say first thing (next time) to back-up copies of all player-character mod-saves before testing with all players involved.

Not easy to say what mods are guaranteed to be multiplayer-friendly.

Are Synergies and Essentials still desired to keep on the list? Did they operate without issues in Multiplayer?

@steffire3 there is really nothing for you to apologize over. I certainly don't hold anyone else responsible. Your feedback is encouraging :)

What exactly do you back up first? My saves got so corrupted that I didn't fully get to investigate Synergies or Essentials. Synergies at least has always been pretty solid for me.

@fulcrum yes sorry to hear about the equipment loss. My daughter is older now but she's still a baby in my eyes and the thought of 4 little ones losing their stash makes me sad!

since you mentioned they didnt really use the display-armors feature of ESOBC, yes you can forego that for stability (it's unfortunate that author doudley opted to give it inventory changes as well).

Warbounds is an excellent mod, but it is complex as you noted. If you wanted it for the companions it provides, maybe look at a simpler mod like Mercenaries Lite?

Similar to @steffire I'd ask you about Synergies, but more from the difficulty angle - are your kids okay with how hard it is? Because iirc even if you dial the game difficulty back (to like easy) the Synergies mobs are still very tough.

Lastly LAO2 CE is a great items mod adding like 20K more items! But they're variations of existing item types + affixes combinations. If you'd like totally new item types as well (examples: gatling guns, flamethrowers, etc) you can consider adding the Variant Items mod too.

Originally posted by fulcrum:

@steffire3 there is really nothing for you to apologize over. I certainly don't hold anyone else responsible.
Your feedback is encouraging :)

What exactly do you back up first? My saves got so corrupted that I didn't fully get to investigate Synergies or Essentials. Synergies at least has always been pretty solid for me.

Thanks Fulcrum. TL2 is tricky to get working on Multiplayer with mods.

I would say that if you feel comfortable continuing with Synergies then have characters begun their mod-saves with Synergies in the load order then copy-paste those mod-saves somewhere else that is safe from overwrites by placing them in an unrelated outside folder.

Then we'll look into other mods to add from there.
Mod-packs are difficult to get functional in Multiplayer because of their many mods added.
Much easier to add mods that offer smaller more precise features.