The Phoenix Flavour - Release 3.2

Below is a straight-up copy/paste from the reddit post with all info for the 3.2 release. I  promise to get more active here on Patreon again soon...

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Official Release:

At long last, 3.2 is here. We have been working on this release since February with a lengthy beta period extended by time spent waiting on the AMB Content Addon release plus further testing for our custom loot overhaul. The update includes many notable and highly requested changes, so strap in!

Github:

After checking the readmes, documentations, and gameplay guides published by Wabbajack authors, I have finally given Github a good try as a platform to maintain the guide on (thanks to erri for the final nudge!). It was the best decision ever. The guide is now spread out over multiple markdown pages that are easy to update and changes can be suggested by anyone through pull requests. Github’s releases page, issue tracker and projects system have also turned out to be invaluable. The TPF repository will be the guide’s new home for the foreseeable future.

I encourage everyone to make extensive use of the Github bug tracker and report any issues you find. You can also suggest changes or additions there. Please use our Google form to submit mod suggestions! You can see mods that are being considered or have already been rejected on our Trello board.

The Website:

As many of you will have noticed, the website with TPF 3.1.5 has been taken down a while ago in anticipation of the 3.2 release. This was mostly due to the fact that I cannot support older versions. A better (and free!) alternative was found with Github so the website is shut down permanently.

Anyone linking back to the guide (to the BethINI, ENB, or DynDOLOD sections for WJ installers), please update the link to https://github.com/foreverphoenix/The-Phoenix-Flavour or link directly to the markdown file / section that you want your users to follow. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Guide Changes:

You can check the full mod list in our Google spreadsheet, maintained by D1Z4STR. 

• We removed Cutting Room Floor. This will raise many eyebrows I’m sure, I myself was irritated when it was first suggested to me. Upon closer inspection of a mod that has been in my mod list by default since time immemorial, I and my team came to the conclusion that the mod requires far too many patches and work to integrate changes too insignificant to warrant the effort.
•  A perk overhaul, finally! Adamant by SimonMagus was added to the guide to complement our vanilla plus ideal, so all those requests for a perk overhaul can be laid to rest now. No, I won't add Ordinator.
• With 3DNPCs, a slew of new companions and quests was added. This is one of the very few big content mods that I considered and, unlike CR, I do believe it is worth the effort. However, I'm still considering to make 3DNPCs optional in the future (part of a Content addon or something like that) because it doesn't fully fit into our concept.
• All Geared Up Derivative was fully integrated into the setup with all necessary instructions.
• We have a custom loot overhaul now! Based on JonnyWang's Hybrid Loot and Encounter Zones, Umgak built an overhaul tailored to our vision and setup. While preserving Morrowloot rules of no Glass+ equipment as random loot, she has implemented a semi-levelled system including thematic drops (such as more Dwarven equipment in Dwemer ruins). The overhaul is still considered a beta and requires further testing and refinement, but we are confident that it functions as intended in its current state.
•  Grass in the Morthal swamp is notoriously ugly with Cathedral Landscapes. The guide now includes an option (plugin replacer) to replace only the swamp grass with Veydosebrom. This will impact performance, at least on weaker machines.

Overall, 30+ mods were removed or replaced, and around 50 new mods were added (many of which are optional). You can find the full 3.2 changelog here.

Wabbajack:

The Phoenix Flavour 3.2 will be available as a Wabbajack installer very soon. u/LivelyNightmare has been maintaining the installer for several months now so show him some appreciation by not bothering him about when the installer will be ready. He is on it, it will be up shortly after the manual guide's update.

Stuff for non-guide users:

Even if you don't use TPF, there is still some cool stuff to take away from this release.

• AllGUD author Kriffin supplied instructions on how to fix some XPMSSE script bugs that are difficult to follow without prio CK / script editing experience. Umgak wrote a diff patcher that will automatically fix your XPMSSE scripts without actually sharing edited ones and you can download it from our joint patch hub.
• Team members of TPF and Wabbajack found a bug in the latest version of SSEEdit where cleaning Dragonborn.esm with QuickAutoClean deletes much of the floor in Apocrypha, breaking the game. This can be fixed by adding the '-DontCache' command to the SSEEdit QAC executable. Make sure to replace your current, cleaned Dragonborn.esm with a vanilla copy and re-clean it.

- Our Morrowloot derivative, Morrowloot Miscellania, received several updates, most notably the Hybrid Loot plugin. There is also the new Dremora Bound Weapons file. Please note that the Hybrid Loot plugin is not available on the Nexus yet. It will be uploaded soon (tm), most likely to the Morrowloot Miscellania mod page. 

Future Plans:

Now that 3.2 is finally out, I will be focusing on something quite different - a Fallout 4 mod list for Wabbajack. A TPF-like guide for FO4 has been requested many times over the years but writing and maintaining two guides is more than I can handle. This will be my first foray into the WJ world but thankfully I have the current FO4 list authors to bother about any issues I run into. So far it includes a partial custom sorting overhaul, simple crafting stations and decent integration of PAMAP so far. All vanilla-plus, obviously.

At the same time, I have a number of changes lined up for 3.3 that will probably be added through smaller updates (yay for Github). As it stands, I don't plan a huge 3.3 update but rather many small incremental ones. This will include some additional music mods I fell in love with in my personal playthrough. CCOR will get the boot very soon to be replaced with a smaller, custom tweaks plugin more in line with our general concept. I'm also looking to tweak merchant inventories to be more consistent with Hybrid Loot.

And finally I'm still tinkering with SkyPlus, my beginner's guide, without making any real progress. It's coming eventually. I hope.

Acknowledgements:

There is no point rambling on about corona as we're all in lockdown and experiencing the same frustration. I want to say, however, that with isolation and depression, it's working on the guide that gets me out of bed in the morning. It's the one project I manage to work on sometimes, even if my ability to focus and concentrate is lacking. Thank you all for making this possible. 

For 3.2, I want to thank first and foremost Umgak (for all the custom files and conflict resolution) and Lively (for the continued support and all your feedback). Thanks also to our many beta testers, for all the issues you pointed out and bugs you reported!

Have a nice day and happy modding!
- Phoenix